A common task in Terminal Management TMX is creating and maintaining products as inventory grows and changes. Products must be set up in Terminal Management TMX if they are to be used in orders.
Overview
Bulk Products
Panel Settings
Products
Cross Reference
Product Setup Tool
Maintaining Products in TMX
Terminal Management TMX divides products into three parts: Products, Bulk Products, and Panel Settings.
Bulk Products represent physical Inventory in a system. A Bulk Product is created for each type of product held in inventory.
Bulk Product Panel Settings, often called "Panel Settings", in Terminal Management TMX tells the system where to find a Bulk Product and how to dispense it. This allows each bulk product to be "dialed in" for accuracy.
Most often, Products are set up on a particular panel and panel function; in some cases, however, it may not be feasible to have every Bulk Product available automatically. This is where Hand Add Products are important. In the case of a hand add, the product is still tied to a panel but rather than tying it to a particular panel function, the "Hand Add" panel function is used. The "Hand add" product, when encountered by the Kahler Automation system during dispensing, will prompt the operator to manually add a particular bulk product to the order in progress.
Products in Terminal Management TMX are what is being made available for dispensing. This can be considered similar to a menu in a restaurant. Some products will consist of a single bulk product (often called a "1:1" or a "1 to 1"), while others will be a ratio of two or more Bulk Products.
Additionally, some recipes will include additional functions such as recirculation or agitation. These functions may be required or helpful for certain products, especially when granular hand-adds are to be added to a weight tank.
Product recipes should be read top to bottom. Consider the image below of an example product recipe that has a granular hand-add.
First, water is added to the weigh tank and then the recirculation is started to agitate the water. Once the hand add has been added and marked in the system, recirculation is stopped and a timed mix cycle starts, running for 20 seconds. Finally, the last product is carrier line water (for the bulk of the order's volume) which will dispense separately.
Finally, if a facility makes use of an interface, the cross refence info should be added to the product to enable the interface to make orders using this new product. The cross reference number will be defined by the agronomy/ERP system in use.
The Product Setup tool brings all parts of product creation into one place, making creating new products in Terminal Management TMX a streamlined process. To use this, after logging in, see Product Setup Tool.
If you would rather get straight to it, a step-by-step guide is available for either dry or liquid facilities. These guides show a basic 1:1 product being created.
While creating products in Terminal Management TMX is simplified with the Product Setup tool, updating details of products is often easier to accomplish by knowing where certain details can be more directly accessed. See Maintaining Products in Terminal Management TMX for more information on the topic.