Steve asked me to run some of the mini units ideas and options by Danny, as he missed out on our conversation the other day. We did lots of drawing, scenarios, and even some typing of what we were hoping to accomplish. Nice little brainstorming and planning session. This is kinda funny, but I was pitching the ideas on mini units like it was my current project. I kept defending certain ideas and concepts, yet nobody was defending an alternate point of view. I don't know why, but I felt like I was trying to pitch something that was being opposed and/or had a conflict. It turned out fine, just not sure why I was so motivated to get the ideas and concepts across. Kinda funny.

We ended up going into options for the mini units and how they could be tied into packages of packages (cases, boxes, crates, etc.), media/content options (specific paperwork per mini unit), and tons of options on flow for how those mini units would flow through the processes (data assembly line and flex bubble stuff). This ended up sending us on a tangent to talk about the order, invoice, fulfillment, and shipping processes. Lots of ideas about bringing things in, tracking and recording inventory, selling items internally, and also selling items externally or through ecommerce. Certain places have subs, sub processes, data entry, uploading documentation, gathering other info, etc. Each side of that story (receiving, stocking, selling, shipping, etc.) all have different needs dealing with the same mini unit or serialized items. Very interesting.

We got into what some of the reports may look like, how to find and filter the records, we also talked about bulk ways to look and match-up those extra details (serial numbers per mini unit). We got into 1-to-many-to-many-to-many relationships. It got kinda deep in places. Build what is needed to track it all the way through. Very interesting.

Steve and Sean were also talking about tracking backorders and using quotes (orders), invoices, and monitoring the fulfillment of those orders. We got into concepts of joiner tables out in database land. A joiner table is a table that creates relationships between different objects. The subject for this meeting was quotes, quote line items (aka the order), and how those were fulfilled on one or more invoices, and invoice line items. We talked about ways of using a joiner table to monitor those relationships and fulfillment needs.

Good meeting, lots of concepts, pitching, planning, and drawing.