01 · Presales & kickoff · Industry terms
A temperature zone is not an attribute on an item
The industry consultant writes floor rules that cannot be guessed — cold chain, shifts, lots — into the proposal, so another industry's stock language is not forced onto the site.
On-book, available, in-transit. Three people saying “stock” are not naming the same number. If the words are not aligned first, reports will fight.
Reject the whole truck. Frozen and chilled travel in separate trucks. If dock temperature fails, the whole truck is not unloaded. It is not a reject of one SKU line.
Accept-within days follow the supplier. Not a single 180 days on the item master. The bin itself carries a temperature zone. Putaway has to check it.
What the industry consultant adds are rules that cannot be copied from another project
Presales circles the documents to build. The solution consultant decides which system holds the books. The industry consultant has to add the conditions under which this document is valid in this industry. He does not write test cases. He does not open a second system proposal. Public industry-consulting roles stress vertical method: retail count-out and membership, manufacturing shifts and WIP, cold-chain temperature zones and lots, cannot be swapped. A swapped proposal can walk through a demo. The floor will refuse it in week one of go-live, because an action the system allows is an incident in this industry.
A DaXi Technology industry consultant is not responsible for turning the proposal into a contract, and not responsible for turning rules into test cases. He is responsible, at proposal review, for the right to say “this is not the same class of stock” or “this node does not exist in this industry”. That sentence has to carry floor evidence: a temperature log, a lot ledger, an old reject document. Industry experience without evidence is someone else's habit. It cannot enter acceptance.
In a cold-chain warehouse, temperature comes before the barcode
A cold-chain DC wanted receiving and putaway. The generic warehouse demo put temperature on the item line as an optional box. The receiver could scan first and fill temperature later. The industry consultant spent a morning on the dock. Frozen trucks and chilled trucks parked apart. When the temperature check failed, the warehouse clerk rejected the whole truck, not one yoghurt SKU on it. Only after a pass did they unload by lot. Accept-within days were printed on the supplier's arrival file. The same SKU with a different supplier had different days. Bin doors carried temperature-zone stickers. Goods put in the wrong zone had to be moved the same day, not found at month-end count.
Those facts rewrote three sentences in the proposal. First, arrival records the truck trip and the temperature check first. A failed check generates no putaway task and writes no quantity into available stock. Second, accept-within days hang on “supplier + item”, not on a default on the item master. When the file days conflict with the master, the truck file wins, and a variance is left. It must not be overwritten in silence. Third, the bin master carries a temperature zone. Putaway scan checks it. A wrong zone is refused outright. There is no shortcut button for “put it away first, adjust later”. That shortcut looks convenient in the office. In a cold store it means a pallet thawing.
The same stock language, dropped onto machining or retail, will fail
Cold chain proves a temperature zone cannot be copied from a dry warehouse. The industry consultant still has to use another industry to prove “do not copy from another project” is not a slogan. A machine shop treats WIP on the machine as available stock: generic warehousing would let a semi-finished part scan into sellable, and sales would sell a part still on the lathe. The industry consultant watched job tickets at shift end: quantity not yet reported complete can only be called WIP. It cannot enter sellable. It cannot generate an issue. Retail count-out is also not a stock count. The store manager changes the quantity at night by feel. That is count-out. It must not generate a stock-adjustment document. Adjustment documents appear only after a physical count is signed. Turn count-out into a count, and month-end will show a pile of adjustments with no counter.
Three industries, three term tables. Each word has three columns: how the floor says it, which object it maps to in the system, and what must never happen. Cold-chain “available quantity” does not include a truck that failed the temperature check. Machining “stock” does not include WIP. Retail “stock adjustment” does not include count-out. If purchasing also calls in-transit stock, the report opens another column. It does not merge into one field.
How a term becomes a sentence the next hand can use
Terms go to the Requirements analyst, who writes them as if, then, not allowed. The industry consultant does not write the sentence fuzzy for him. Cold-chain temperature zones, machining WIP, retail count-out, are not optional. If the customer insists temperature is only a remark, the industry consultant writes the consequence into the review record: a failed truck trip will still generate putaway tasks. That is risk accepted, not a proposal improvement. System boundaries still sit with the Solution consultant. The industry consultant does not open a second system proposal.
After go-live, a warehouse clerk rejects an over-temperature arrival with one truck, and the system has no putaway task. On a machining shift that has not ended, a semi-finished part cannot scan into sellable. That is the result the industry consultant needs to see. If the system received the goods and left temperature in a remark, the jargon never entered the rule, and this role's work is still sitting in a notebook.