What is purpose of Manufacturers and Brand Management?

[dalers]

Can anyone explain the purpose and expected workflow associated with [Menu > Inventory > Maintenance > Brands Maintenance] aka Manufacturers.php? There doesn't seem to be anything on brands in the user manual.

I'm guessing brands are for sales reporting, if a sales items is associated with a manufacturer and brand it will be possible to report on sales by manufacturer and brand, not just by item, region, sales person.... Am I on the right track? Does anyone use this?

Also, how are Manufacturers created? I can't see where this is done (but expect it wil be obvious in hindsight ;-))

Fwiw, I'm investigating adding manufacturers and manufacturers part numbers to the schema (for design and manufacturing companies who need to control the OEM part number being purchased), and noticed there is an existing "manufacturers" table in the schema.

Cheers,
Dale

[pakricard]

As far as I remember, they were used in Phil's webSHOP, an add-on he created to convert webERP into an online store.

Now, manufacturer (aka brand) is used only in SalesCategories.php a script that assigns items to Sales Categories (a.k.a. categories different from stockmaster.categoryid that can classify items easily from sales POV).

It is not used in any sales reprots, as currently these sales reports reply on the stock category (stockmaster.categoryid ), not the sales category.

So, as per today, not much usage of these fields in standard webERP. I don't think anyone, anywhere is still using Phil's webSHOP, as it was great then, but now is shows its age ;-).

It could be used in the future post v5 to improve reporting, or bring up-to-date bridges with different ecommerce shops.

R

P.S. I use these fields extensively in the webERP-Opencart bridge (I donated the code years ago, but lost track of the public repository).

[timschofield]

Yes, this was done by @PhilDaintree and @pakricard is right that is part of the webSHOP. Even if webSHOP is no longer used I think this info is good to have in.
Phil used brands and manufacturers as interchangeable terms and the manufacturers table is updated via Inventory->Brands Maintenance. In fact that script is called Manufacturers.php

Tim

[dalers]

When I access Manufactures.php i get a notice that no brands have been entered.

[pakricard]

I think we should rename "manufacturer" into "brand" everywhere around this script. Probably the script name itself too.

If the data is used in a sales scenario "brand" makes more sense than "manufacturer" that is a name related to production, not sales.

As example if you sell fashion you might use the brands Zara, Bershka, Stradivarius, etc but all refer to the same manufacturer Inditex SA. In a sales context, the manufacturer per se is irrelevant, but the brand is not.

[timschofield]

I think as far as this script is concerned, brand and manufacturer are interchangeable terms.

Tim

[dalers]

I created Issue #668 (comment) to correct the current Manufacturers vs Brands confusion.

[wde1]

Manufacturer Nestle has over 2000 brands
Manufacturer GM has the brands Chevrolet, GMC, Buick, and Cadillac
Manufacturer HP has productline/brands Pavilion, Envy, Spectre, OMEN, and Victus

Manufacturer != Brand

Manufacturer = Vendor
Brand = Product grouping

[timschofield]

As @pakricard suggested here - #668 (reply in thread) - I think that Manufacturers should be renamed Brands everywhere to avoid the confusion. Anybody not agree?

Tim

[dalers]

Manufacturer = Vendor
Brand = Product grouping

Manufacturer != Vendor !!

A manufacturer may be a Vendor but many manufacturers sell through distributors or retailers and it is they who are the vendor in a purchase. This distinction is not currently relevent in webERP but will be critical to supporting "PLM" (product lifecycle management) when a particular manufacturer's part number is controlled and specifies what must be purchased, regardless of the vendor it is purchased from.

As @pakricard suggested here - #668 (reply in thread) - I think that Manufacturers should be renamed Brands everywhere to avoid the confusion. Anybody not agree?

I agree - or at least I'm not aware of any reason not to... ;-)