Glossary
Unit of measure (UoM)
A unit of measure (UoM) is the unit in which a quantity is counted or measured, such as piece, metre, square metre, kilogram or pack. Every order line, LV position and catalogue article has one.
In short
The unit of measure says what a quantity counts: pieces, metres, square metres, kilograms or packs. A request and a catalogue can count the same article in different units.
The codes are standardised. UN/ECE Recommendation 20 is the code list for units of measure in international trade, and BMEcat uses its codes. H87 means piece, and C62 means one unit.
BMEcat separates the order unit from the content unit. In its specification example, a crate of mineral water is ordered as a crate, the content unit is the bottle, and each crate holds 6 bottles.
Example
An LV asks for 120 m of multilayer composite pipe, 16 x 2.0 mm. The wholesaler sells the pipe in coils of 50 m. 120 m become 3 coils, which is 150 m, not 120 pieces. The arithmetic is 120 m divided by 50 m per coil, which gives 2.4 coils, so 3 coils are needed. When the request uses another unit than the catalogue, the quantity has to be converted with the article’s own conversion factor before it is ordered.
In a GAEB file, each LV position carries a quantity (Qty) and a unit (QU), for example 48.5 m. In an ETIM class, a feature can also carry a unit.
What to watch for
The same unit has many spellings, such as Stk, St., Stück, pcs and EA. Check that they mean the same unit before you convert.
m and m² are easy to confuse in a PDF. Read the unit next to each quantity.
The order unit and the content unit can differ, as the crate example shows. Check which of the two a quantity refers to before you convert it.
After conversion, round to the pack size.
Not to be confused with
Packaging unit: how many units are in one pack. The unit of measure is the unit itself.
Price unit: the quantity a price refers to, for example per 100 pieces.
In Mercura
When Mercura assigns an article to a line, it converts the requested quantity into the article’s own unit with the conversion stored for that article.
Related terms
Packaging unit (pack size)
A packaging unit (pack size) is the quantity of an article that is packed and sold together, for example a box of 100 screws, a pack of 6 or a coil of 50 m. Orders are placed in whole packaging units.
Unit price (in a bill of quantities)
A unit price (Einheitspreis, EP) is the price for one unit of a bill of quantities position, such as one metre or one piece. Quantity times unit price gives the item total, and the item totals add up to the bid total.
ETIM (product classification)
ETIM is the international classification standard for technical products. It sorts products into classes and describes each class with a fixed set of features, so that products of different manufacturers can be compared by their technical data.
Part number cross reference
A part number cross reference is a table that maps one part number to an equivalent one: the product of a competitor to your own, a customer number to your article number, or an old number to its successor.
Punchout catalog
A punchout catalog lets a buyer’s procurement system use a supplier’s online shop. The buyer jumps into the shop, fills a cart, and the cart returns to the buyer’s system, where the order is placed.
Material takeoff (quantity takeoff)
A material takeoff (Mengenermittlung, quantity takeoff) is the counting and measuring of the quantities of work and material for a project, from the drawings before construction and by measuring what was built afterwards (Aufmaß).
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