Ceramic tiles: tracking lot, shade and calibre in stock records

When the same ceramic model arrives in two separate shipments, the boxes look identical. Product name, size and price on the label are the same, yet one delivery may come out slightly lighter, or a few millimetres different in size. Lay the two side by side on a wall and the difference is obvious. If the stock record holds only the model code, the warehouse says "1,152 m² in stock" while the customer cannot find enough in a single shade. The problem starts in the structure of the record, long before the count.

What lot, shade and calibre mean

Three separate pieces of information, usually printed on the side label of the box:

• Lot: the manufacturer's code for products from the same production run.
• Shade: the colour class within a lot. Small colour differences that appear after firing are grouped this way.
• Calibre: the actual size class. Two products labelled 60×60 can differ by a few millimetres after firing, and tiles of different calibre spoil the grout lines.

How the codes are written differs from one producer to the next. What matters is that the storekeeper can find all three on the label and that the record has a place for each. Comparing the lot on the delivery note with the label on the carton at goods receipt takes a few minutes; if they differ, a separate line is opened that day, not months later.

Why one line is not enough

An illustrative case: the record shows a single line for the "Grey 60×60" model, 800 cartons (1,152 m²). A carton holds 4 tiles, i.e. 1.44 m², and a pallet holds 40 cartons, i.e. 57.6 m². Once the cartons are sorted by shade label during the count, the picture changes:

• Shade A: 500 cartons, 720 m²
• Shade B: 240 cartons, 345.6 m²
• Total: 740 cartons, 1,065.6 m²

The difference against the record is 60 cartons, or 86.4 m². On top of that, if a customer asks for 600 cartons in one shade, the record says "available", yet only 500 cartons exist in a single shade. The stock total may be right, but the sellable stock is smaller.

How to hold it in the record

Three options, from the tidiest:

1. Add lot and shade fields to the same item code, if your 1C or ERP has a lot or characteristic field.
2. Open a sub-code for each shade, for instance by adding A or B to the end of the model code.
3. At the very least, write the shade in the line note. This is the weakest solution and needs manual sorting at every count.

Whichever you choose, lot and shade should be mandatory fields on the goods-receipt slip. Guessing from the label afterwards produces errors.

Order of work during the count

1. Check that every carton on a pallet bears the same shade label; split mixed pallets.
2. Count full pallets by cartons and convert to m² with the factor on the item card.
3. Write open, broken or incomplete cartons and loose tiles on a separate line.
4. List showroom sample boards and leftovers from old series separately.
5. If the record has no separate line for lots that differ in shade or calibre, note this in the variance table as a finding.

Common mistakes

• Adding a new shipment of the same model onto the old line, so the shade difference vanishes from the record.
• Leaving the shade only on the carton and not writing it on the slip.
• Counting showroom samples as warehouse stock, or not counting them at all.
• Leaving broken tiles and opened cartons out of the records.
• Taking the total in m² without checking the number of cartons.

The last one matters more than it looks. If a full pallet is 57.6 m², dividing by 1.44 gives a round 40 cartons. If the count sheet says 57.0 m², the cause may be rounding or a wrong factor rather than a missing carton. That is why it is safer to count in cartons and calculate m² afterwards.

In short

For ceramics, stock is not just a question of "how many m²"; it also has to answer "which shade, which calibre". In building-materials warehouses StockSystem converts between pallet, carton, m² and kg according to the item card and keeps lots that differ in shade or calibre on separate lines.