IN THIS ARTICLE

• Handling Units: Overview
• Text Guide
  • Navigate to Handling units page
  • View handling units

Handling Units: Overview

Handling Units, at the most basic level, are packages which contain materials. Handling units can be part of other handling units. They can be issued or received or counted, and typically used in the higher echelons of supply chains. Examples of handling units include:

1. A BCG vial (primary package) is a handling unit for 10 BCG doses, esp. at the PHC level where they are issued in vials, even though the stock keeping is done in doses. A Measles vial is a handling unit of 5 Measles doses.
2. A BCG box (secondary package) is a handling unit containing, say, 30 BCG vials. At the State and Division warehouses would typically receive and issue the boxes, but maintain the stock in units of doses.
3. A 100gm Parle biscuit packet is a handling unit for 10 pieces of biscuits. A 500gm Parle biscuit packet is a handling unit for 50 pieces of biscuit.
4. A carton of biscuit packages is a handling unit for, say, 200 biscuit packets, comprising of either one or more type of biscuit packets - say, 150 100gm packages, and 50 500 gm packets. While this could be a possibility, it generally may not be.

NOTE: A stock-keeping unit is defined as the units in which stock is maintained, and could be different than the handling unit itself. For instance, stock is maintained across the vaccine supply chain in doses, but the receipt, storage, and issues are in units of boxes of vials at the State, Division or District stores, and in vials at the PHCs or below.

The scenarios under which HUs become useful are the following:

1. A State Vaccine Store manager receives boxes of vaccine, each with a certain number of vials, stores it in the warehouse for a certain amount of time and issues them to his customers (division or district warehouses).
   1. He could receive the materials in handling units (of packages), while the stock keeping unit could be doses (wherein there is mapping from boxes → vials → doses, which the system can automatically covert). In this case, while the physical good is received as a box, he still receives/issues/counts in doses.
   2. He could issue the materials in handling units physically, but still reports issues in doses. Alternatively, he could report issues in handling units of boxes, and his stock keeping unit in doses could automatically decrement.
   3. He may choose to track how many boxes he has in the store, or not - just doses as stock keeping units suffice.
2. A District vaccine store manager receives boxes of vaccines, while he issues vials to PHCs. In either case, he issues/receives in doses, and maintains stock in doses.
3. A PHC physically receives in vials, and physically issues open and closed vials, but maintains their stock/issue/receipt units in doses.

In summary, an entity could uniformly have a unit of measure for receiving, stock keeping and issuing, while the physical handling unit could be nested container of the stock keeping units.

Navigate to the Handling Units page

1. Click on the Setup on the main menu
2. Click on Handling Units in the drop-down menu
3. View a list of existing Handling Units

Handling Unit filter

1. Filter or search for handling units by using the Handling Units filter field (See article titled "Filter by handling units")
2. Click on the Reset button to reset to default view

View Handling Units

1. View the number of materials with handling units
2. The materials are listed in alphabetical order
3. Click on the name of the material

4. View the material handling unit information page

5. View the description of the material, if it is provided

6. Click on the name in the contents of the handling units (the combination of material name and contents)

7. View material detail page with handling unit information

8. View the name of the person who has last updated the record

9. Click on the edit button

10. View the page where edits can be made to handling units (See article "How to edit Handling Units?")