Glossary

The portion of a company’s inventory and planned production that is uncommitted and available to sell.

See Marine Cargo Insurance - Average

In manufacturing, dividing total costs (fixed and variable) by the total number of units produced.

See Business-to-Business (B2B).

See Business-to-Consumer (B2C).

See Baltic Dry Index.

See Bill of Lading (BOL).

See Bill of Material (BOM).

See Business Performance Measurement (BPM).

See Business Process Outsourcing (BPO).

See Business Process Reengineering (BPR).

An order that will be shipped when product becomes available. A valid order for a product currently out of stock.

In trucking, the portion of the trip from the delivery destination back to the origin.

The status of an order that cannot be shipped due to it currently not being available. See Back Order.

To bring back "in house" functions that previosuly had been outsourced.

The difference in value between a country's exports and imports during a specific period of time.

A way to systemically measure operational and financial metrics and compare performance over time. Used to measure internal company or vendor performance.

A large bundle of compressed, bound or wrapped material. Examples include cotton and hay.

The Baltic Dry Index (BDI) measures changes in the cost of transporting various bulk raw materials - such as coal, grains, and iron ore - by sea.

A code consisting of a series of numbers and parallel lines of varying widths designed to identify an item and be read by an optical scanner. Also called a barcode.

An optical device designed to read bar codes and transit the bar code data to a computer system. May be portable or stationary. Also called a bar code reader.

The process of generating bar code data and putting it on items. See Bar Code and Bar Code Scanner.

A vessel, usually flat-bottomed, used for the transport of goods primarily on inland waterways and usually propelled by towing.

The existence of barriers such as high startup costs or complex regulations that make it difficult for new competitors to easily enter an area of business.

The trading of goods or services in exchange for other goods or services rather than exchanging money.