Terminology 

Dashboard - A performance measurement tool used to capture a summary of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)/metrics of a company. Metrics dashboards/scorecards should be easy to read and usually have "red, yellow, green" indicators to flag when the company is not meeting its metrics targets. Ideally, a dashboard/scorecard should be cross-functional in nature and include both financial and non-financial measures. In addition, scorecards should be reviewed regularly at least on a monthly basis and weekly in key functions such as manufacturing and distribution where activities are critical to the success of a company. The dashboard/scorecards philosophy can also be applied to external supply chain partners such as suppliers to ensure that supplier's objectives and practices align. Synonym Scorecard.



Data Communications - The electronic transmission of data, usually in computer readable form, using a variety of transmission vehicles and paths.



Data Dictionary - Lists the data elements for which standards exist. The Joint Electronic Document Interchange (JEDI) committee developed a data dictionary that is employed by many EDI users.



Data Interchange Standards Association (DISA) - The secretariat, which provides clerical and administrative support to the ASC X12 Committee.



Data Mining - The process of studying data to search for previously unknown relationships. This knowledge is then applied to achieving specific business goals.



Data Warehouse - A repository of data that has been specially prepared to support decision-making applications. Synonym Decision-Support Data.



Database - Data stored in computer-readable form, usually indexed or sorted in a logical order by which users can find a particular item of data they need.



Date Code - A label on products with the date of production. In food industries, it is often an integral part of the lot number.



Days of Supply - Measure of quantity of inventory-on-hand, in relation to number of days for which usage which will be covered. For example, if a component is consumed in manufacturing at the rate of 100 per day, and there are 1,585 units available onhand, this represents 15.85 days supply.



Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) - Measurement of the average collection period (time from invoicing to cash receipt). Calculation [5 Point Annual Gross Accounts Receivables] / [Total Annual Sales / 365]



DBR - See Drum-Buffer-Rope



DC - See Distribution Center



Dead on Arrival (DOA) - A term used to describe products which are not functional when delivered. Synonym Defective.



Deadhead - The return of an empty transportation container to its point of origin. See backhauling.



Decentralized authority - A situation in which management decision-making authority is given to managers at many levels in the organizational hierarchy.



Decision Support System (DSS) - Software that speeds access and simplifies data analysis, queries, etc. within a database management system.



Decomposition - A method of forecasting where time series data are separated into up to three components trend, seasonal, and cyclical



Dedicated Contract Carriage - A third-party service that dedicates equipment (vehicles) and drivers to a single customer for its exclusive use on a contractual basis.



Defective goods inventory (DGI) - Those items that have been returned, have been delivered damaged and have a freight claim outstanding, or have been damaged in some way during warehouse handling.



Delimiters - 1) ASCII, characters which are used to separate data elements within a data stream. 2) EDI, two levels of separators and a terminator that are integrals part of a transferred data stream. Delimiters are specified in the interchange header. From highest to lowest level, the separators and terminator are segment terminator, data element separator, and component element separator (used only in EDIFACT).



Delivery Performance to Commit Date - The percentage of orders that are fulfilled on or before the internal Commit date, used as a measure of internal scheduling systems effectiveness. Delivery measurements are based on the date a complete order is shipped or the ship-to date of a complete order. A complete order has all items on the order delivered in the quantities requested. An order must be complete to be considered fulfilled. Multiple line items on a single order with different planned delivery dates constitute multiple orders, and multiple planned delivery dates on a single line item also constitute multiple orders. Calculation [Total number of orders delivered in full and on time to the scheduled commit date] / [Total number of orders delivered]



Delivery Performance to Request Date - The percentage of orders that are fulfilled on or before the customer's requested date used as a measure of responsiveness to market demand. Delivery measurements are based on the date a complete order is shipped or the ship-to date of a complete order. A complete order has all items on the order delivered in the quantities requested. An order must be complete to be considered fulfilled. Multiple line items on a single order with different planned delivery dates constitute multiple orders, and multiple planned delivery dates on a single line item also constitute multiple orders. Calculation [Total number of orders delivered in full and on time to the customer's request date] / [Total number of orders delivered]



Delivery-Duty-Paid - Supplier/manufacturer arrangement in which suppliers are responsible for the transport of the goods they have produced, which is being sent to a manufacturer. This responsibility includes tasks such as ensuring products get through Customs.



Delphi Method - A qualitative forecasting technique where the opinions of experts are combined in a series of iterations. The results of each iteration are used to develop the next, so that convergence of the experts' opinions is obtained.



Delta Nu Alpha - A professional association of transportation and traffic practitioners.



Demand Chain - Another name for the supply chain, with emphasis on customer or end-user demand pulling materials and product through the chain.



Demand Chain Management - Same as supply chain management, but with emphasis on consumer pull versus supplier push.



Demand Management - The proactive compilation of requirements information regarding demand (i.e., customers, sales, marketing, finance) and the firm's capabilities from the supply side (i.e., supply, operations and logistics management)



Demand Planning - The process of identifying, aggregating, and prioritizing, all sources of demand for the integrated supply chain of a product or service at the appropriate level, horizon and interval. The sales forecast is comprised of the following concepts 1. The sales forecasting level is the focal point in the corporate hierarchy where the forecast is needed at the most generic level, i.e. Corporate forecast, Divisional forecast, Product Line forecast, SKU, SKU by Location. 2. The sales forecasting time horizon generally coincides with the time frame of the plan for which it was developed, i.e. Annual, 1-5 years, 1- 6 months, Daily, Weekly, Monthly. 3. The sales forecasting time interval generally coincides with how often the plan is updated, i.e. Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly.



Demand Planning Systems - The systems that assist in the process of identifying, aggregating, and prioritizing, all sources of demand for the integrated supply chain of a product or service at the appropriate level, horizon and interval.



Demand Pull - The triggering of material movement to a work center only when that work center is ready to begin the next job. It in effect eliminates the queue from in front of a work center, but it can cause a queue at the end of a previous work center.



Demand Supply Balancing - The process of identifying and measuring the gaps and imbalances between demand and resources in order to determine how to best resolve the variances through marketing, pricing, packaging, warehousing, outsource plans or some other action that will optimize service, flexibility, costs, assets (or other supply chain inconsistencies) in an iterative and collaborative environment.



Demand Time Fence (DTF) - 1) That point in time inside of which the forecast is no longer included in total demand and projected available inventory calculations



Demand-Side Analysis - Techniques such as market research, surveys, focus groups, and performance/cost modeling used to identify emerging technologies.



Deming Circle - The concept of a continuously rotating wheel of plan-do-check-action (PDCA) used to show the need for interaction among market research, design, production, and sales to improve quality. Also see Plan-Do-Check-Action



Demographic Segmentation - In marketing, dividing potential markets by characteristics of potential customers, such as age, sex, income, and education.



Demurrage - The carrier charges and fees applied when rail freight cars and ships are retained beyond a specified loading or unloading time. Also see Detention, Express



Denied Party List (DPL) - A list of organizations that are unauthorized to submit a bid for an activity or to receive a specific product. For example, some countries have bans for certain products such as weapons or sensitive technology.



Density - A physical characteristic of a commodity measuring its mass per unit volume or pounds per cubic foot



Density Rate - A rate based upon the density and shipment weight.



Deregulation - Revisions or complete elimination of economic regulations controlling transportation. The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 and the Staggers Act of 1980 revised the economic controls over motor carriers and railroads, and the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 eliminated economic controls over air carriers.



Derived Demand - Demand for component products that arises from the demand for final design products. For example, the demand for steel is derived from the demand for automobiles.



Design For Manufacture / Assembly (DFMA) - A product design methodology that provides a quantitative evaluation of product designs.



Design of Experiments (DoE) - A branch of applied statistics dealing with planning, conducting, analyzing, and interpreting controlled tests to evaluate the factors that control the value of a parameter or group of parameters



Destination-Enhanced Consolidation - Ganging of smaller shipments to cut cost, often as directed by a system or via pooling with a third party.



Detention - The carrier charges and fees applied when rail freight cars and ships are retained beyond a specified loading or unloading time. Also see Demurrage, Express



Deterministic Models - Models where no uncertainty is included, e.g., inventory models without safety stock considerations.



DFMA - See Design for Manufacture/ Assembly



DGI - See Defective Goods Inventory



Dial Up - Access a network by dialing a phone number or initiating a computer to dial the number. The dial-up line connects to the network access point via a node or a PAD.



Differential - A discount offered by a carrier that faces a service time disadvantage over a route.



Digital Signature - Electronically generated, digitized (as opposed to graphically created) authorization that is uniquely linkable and traceable to an empowered officer.



Direct Channel - Your own sales force sells to the customer. Your entity may ship to the customer, or a third party may handle shipment, but in either case your entity owns the sales contract and retains rights to the receivable from the customer. Your end customer may be a retail outlet. The movement to the customer may be direct from the factory, or the product may move through a distribution network owned by your company. Order information in this channel may be transmitted by electronic means.



Direct Cost - A cost that can be directly traced to a cost object since a direct or repeatable cause-and-effect relationship exists. A direct cost uses a direct assignment or cost causal relationship to transfer costs. Also see Indirect Cost, Tracing



Direct product profitability (DPP) - Calculation of the net profit contribution attributable to a specific product or product line.



Direct Production Material - Material that is used in the manufacturing/content of a product (example Purchased parts, solder, SMT glues, adhesives, mechanical parts etc. Bill-of-Materials parts, etc.)



Direct Retail Locations - A retail location that purchases products directly from your organization or responding entity.



Direct Store Delivery (DSD) - Process of shipping direct from a manufacturer's plant or distribution center to the customer's retail store, thus bypassing the customer's distribution center. Also called Direct-to-Store Delivery



Direct Transmission - A transmission whereby data is exchanged directly between sender and receiver computers, without an intervening third-party service. Also called a point-to-point transmission.



Direct-to-Store (DTS) Delivery - Same as Direct Store Delivery.



Directed tasks - Tasks that can be completed based upon detailed information provided by the computer system. An order picking task where the computer details the specific item, location, and quantity to pick is an example of a directed task. If the computer could not specify the location and quantity forcing the worker to choose locations or change quantities, it would not be a directed task. Directed tasks set up the opportunity for confirmation transactions.



DISA - See Data Interchange Standards Association.



Disaster Recovery Planning - Contingency planning specifically related to recovering hardware and software (e.g. data centers, application software, operations, personnel, telecommunications) in information system outages.



Discontinuous Demand - A demand pattern that is characterized by large demands interrupted by periods with no demand, as opposed to a continuous or steady (e.g., daily) demand. Synonym Lumpy Demand.



Discrete Available-to-Promise - A calculation based on the available-to-promise figure in the master schedule. For the first period, the ATP is the sum of the beginning inventory plus the MPS quantity minus backlog for all periods until the item is master scheduled again. For all other periods, if a quantity has been scheduled for that time period then the ATP is this quantity minus all customer commitments for this and other periods, until another quantity is scheduled in the MPS. For those periods where the quantity scheduled is zero, the ATP is zero (even if deliveries have been promised). The promised customer commitments are accumulated and shown in the period where the item was most recently scheduled. Also see Available-to- Promise



Discrete Manufacturing - Discrete manufacturing processes create products by assembling unconnected distinct parts as in the production of distinct items such as automobiles, appliances, or computers.



Discrete Order Picking - A method of picking orders in which the items on one order are picked before the next order is picked. Also see Batch Picking, Order Picking, Zone Picking



Discrete Order Quantity - An order quantity that represents an integer number of periods of demand. Most MRP systems employ discrete order quantities. Also see Fixed-period Requirements, Least Total Cost, Least Unit Cost, Lot-for-Lot, Part Period Balancing, Period Order Quantity, Wagner-Whitin Algorithm



Disintermediation - When the traditional sales channels are disassembled and the middleman gets cut out of the deal. Such as where the manufacturer ships direct to a retailer, bypassing the distributor.



Dispatching - The carrier activities involved with controlling equipment



Distributed Inventory - Inventory that is geographically dispersed. For example, where a company maintains inventory in multiple distribution centers to provide a higher level of customer service.



Distribution - Outbound logistics, from the end of the production line to the end user. 1) The activities associated with the movement of material, usually finished goods or service parts, from the manufacturer to the customer. These activities encompass the functions of transportation, warehousing, inventory control, material handling, order administration, site and location analysis, industrial packaging, data processing, and the communications network necessary for effective management. It includes all activities related to physical distribution, as well as the return of goods to the manufacturer. In many cases, this movement is made through one or more levels of field warehouses. Synonym Physical Distribution. 2) The systematic division of a whole into discrete parts having distinctive characteristics.



Distribution Center (DC) - The warehouse facility which holds inventory from manufacturing pending distribution to the appropriate stores.



Distribution Channel - One or more companies or individuals who participate in the flow of goods and services from the manufacturer to the final user or consumer.



Distribution On Demand (DOD) - The order fulfillment state a distribution operation achieves when it can respond, closest to real time, to changes in demand while shipping 100 percent customer compliant orders at the least cost.



Distribution Planning - The planning activities associated with transportation, warehousing, inventory levels, materials handling, order administration, site and location planning, industrial packaging, data processing, and communications networks to support distribution.



Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) - A system of determining demands for inventory at distribution centers and consolidating demand information in reverse as input to the production and materials system.



Distribution Resource Planning (DRP II) - The extension of distribution requirements planning into the planning of the key resources contained in a distribution system warehouse space, workforce, money, trucks, freight cars, etc.



Distribution warehouse - A warehouse that stores finished goods and from which customer orders are assembled.



Distributor - A business that does not manufacture its own products, but purchases and resells these products. Such a business usually maintains a finished goods inventory. Synonym Wholesaler.



Diversion - The practice of selling goods to a competitor that the vendor assumes would be used to service that Customer's store. Example



DOA - See Dead on Arrival.



Dock receipt - A receipt that indicates an export shipment has been delivered to a steamship company by a domestic carrier.



Dock-to-Stock - A program by which specific quality and packaging requirements are met before the product is released. Prequalified product is shipped directly into the customer's inventory. Dock-to-stock eliminates the costly handling of components, specifically in receiving and inspection and enables product to move directly into production.



Document - In EDI, a form, such as an invoice or a purchase order, that trading partners have agreed to exchange and that the EDI software handles within its compliance-checking logic.



DOD - See Distribution on Demand.



DOE - See Design of Experiments



Domain - A computer term for the following 1) Highest subdivision of the Internet, for the most part by country (except in the U.S., where it's by type of organization, such as educational, commercial, and government). Usually the last part of a host name



Domestic trunk line carrier - An air carrier classification for carriers that operate between major population centers. These carriers are now classified as major carriers.



Dormant route - A route over which a carrier failed to provide service 5 days a week for 13 weeks out of a 26-week period.



Double bottoms - A motor carrier operation involving two trailers being pulled by one tractor.



Double Order Point System - A distribution inventory management system that has two order points. The smallest equals the original order point, which covers demand during replenishment lead time. The second order point is the sum of the first order point plus normal usage during manufacturing lead time. It enables warehouses to forewarn manufacturing of future replenishment orders.



Double stack - Two containers, one on top of the other, loaded on a railroad flatcar



Double-pallet jack - A mechanized device for transporting two standard pallets simultaneously.



Download - To merge temporary files containing a day's or week's worth of information with the main data base in order to update it.



Downstream - Referring to the demand side of the supply chain. One or more companies or individuals who participate in the flow of goods and services moving from the manufacturer to the final user or consumer. Opposite of Upstream.



DPC - See Dynamic Process Control



DPL - See Denied Party List



DPP - See Direct product profitability



Drayage - Transportation of materials and freight on a local basis, but intermodal freight carriage may also be referred to as drayage.



Driving time regulations - Rules administered by the U.S. Department of Transportation that limit the maximum time a driver may drive in interstate commerce



Drop - A situation in which an equipment operator deposits a trailer or boxcar at a facility at which it is to be loaded or unloaded.



Drop Ship - To take the title of the product but not actually handle, stock, or deliver it, e.g., to have one supplier ship directly to another or to have a supplier ship directly to the buyer's customer.



DRP - See Disaster Recovery Planning



DRPII - See Distribution Resources Planning



Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) - In the theory of constraints, the generalized process used to manage resources to maximize throughput. The drum is the rate or pace of production set by the system's constraint. The buffers establish the protection against uncertainty so that the system can maximize throughput. The rope is a communication process from the constraint to the gating operation that checks or limits material released into the system to support the constraint. Also see Finite Scheduling,



DSD - See Direct Store Delivery



DSO - See Days Sales Outstanding



DSS - See Decision Support System



DTF - See Demand Time Fence



DTS - See Direct Store Delivery



Dual operation - A motor carrier that has both common and contract carrier operating authority.



Dual rate system - An international water carrier pricing system where a shipper signing an exclusive use agreement with the conference pays a lower rate (10% to %15) than non-signing shippers for an identical shipment.



Dumping - Selling goods below costs in selected markets.



Dunnage - The packing material used to protect a product from damage during transport.



DUNS - Data Universal Numbering System.



DUNS Number - A unique nine-digit number assigned by Dun and Bradstreet to identify a company. DUNS stands for Data Universal Numbering System.



Durable Goods - Generally, any goods whose continuous serviceability is likely to exceed three years (e.g., trucks, furniture).



Dynamic Lot Sizing - Any lot-sizing technique that creates an order quantity subject to continuous recomputation. See Least total cost, Least unit cost, Part period balancing, Period order quantity, Wagner-Whitin algorithm.



Dynamic Process Control (DPC) - Continuous monitoring of process performance and adjustment of control parameters to optimize process output