Pole and Piling Inventory is the current issue

Tracking inventories of poles and pilings is an industry-wide complication. The main issue is how to classify the poles/pilings because they are often requested or specified based on use. Pilings are typically requested/specified by BUTT size whereas poles are usually named by TOP size. This means the same piece of round stock might be requested in two different ways - for instance, a 10"BUTT 20' piling is the same as an 8" TOP 20' pole. This issue mainly causes confusion in TWO places - the inventory system and in the mind of the customer.

A customer who is expecting a 10"BUTT 20' item might be confused by the 8" TOP description on an invoice. Notes can be made, etc, but it causes confusion nonetheless.

The simple solution of choosing one label method or the other and using a "special" line item to set the customer at ease often causes inaccuracies in the inventory tracking system. Let's use an example where we have decided to label the poles by TOP size but a customer has requested multiple pieces of a speficic BUTT size - 10"BUTT 20' for this example which would typically have an 8" TOP but might have a 7 1/2", or even 9", TOP. Because the yard worker is pulling materials based on the required BUTT size, he might actually be pulling poles of various TOP sizes, and thus different SKUs from inventory, whereas the salesperson only invoiced only 8" TOP SKUs.

This creates inaccuracies in inventory quantities and value as well as adversely affects the actual cost and margin of that specific sale.