Did You Know: Raw Materials

We’re pleased to introduce a new back end feature to the Propago Platform: Raw Materials. As the name suggests, Raw Materials are parts that are used as components of finished products. This feature allows you to track inventory and run reports on the use of blanks, shells, and the like.

To explain how Raw Materials in Propago works, think of it as a linkage between two parts: Part A (the finished good) and Part B (the Raw Material part). In the settings of Part A you can designate Part B as a Raw Material for Part A.

Once attached to a part as a Raw Material, this part will be consumed whenever the part it is attached to is produced or taken from inventory.

Note: Propago’s version of Raw Materials isn’t designed for use with generic, site-wide raw goods like paper stock. Raw Materials must be linked to another part in the system.

How Raw Materials flow through the system will depend on the workflow of the part they are connected to. Let’s look at a few examples to illustrate:

Dropship Logo Shirt:

1. Let’s say you’ve got a polo shirt with a logo on your portal.
2. It’s a dropship item with two vendors: vendor A who supplies the blanks and vendor B who does the embroidery.
3. You create a new part called “Blank Shirt” and attach it to the main shirt part as a Raw Material.
4. When the shirts are ordered, vendor A will be notified to send however many blank shirts needed to vendor B.
5. Once vendor B finishes the shirts and ships the order out the blank shirts will be deducted from inventory.

Business Card:

1. Let’s say you want to start tracking your inventory of business card shells.
2. You create a part called “Business Card Shell” and attach it to the appropriate finished good business cards as a Raw Material.
3. The system will remove a Business Card Shell from your inventory for every business card that is produced.

Standing Sign:

1. Let’s say you have a standing display sign product and you want to track the components of that sign.
2. You create a part called “Standing Sign Pole” and attach that part as a Raw Material to the standing sign part.
3. You set the Raw Material quantity to 2.
4. Every time a standing sign part is subtracted from inventory, 2 Standing Sign Pole parts will be subtracted from inventory.

With Raw Materials, you can easily keep track of shells, blanks, and other inventoried items that aren’t finished products.

How It Works

When parts with Raw Materials linked to them get produced or subtracted from inventory, the system will adjust the inventory of the Raw Materials.

To create a Raw Material part do the following:

1. Create the part first as a normal part.
2. Go to the settings of the part your Raw Material will be linked to. 
3. Select Raw Materials on the left-hand menu.
4. Click Add Raw Materials.
5. Select the part to be a Raw Material.
6. Click Add Selected.
7. You can then adjust the quantity as needed to control how many units of that part will be subtracted from inventory per unit of the main part.

Note: A part can be a Raw Material for multiple parts (i.e. a business card blank designated as a Raw Material for several different business card parts).

That’s it for Raw Materials! We hope you find this new feature helpful. Reach out to us if you need any help or have any questions.