Gallon Vs Gal

[mwmalinowski]

@sklar-shirleyk I do recall spelling out 'gallon' for my Owens data project, but I used the two-letter abbreviation GA when discussing units of measure (e.g. 1 GA/JU for 1 gallon per jug)

Have you found one of those to be more common than the other?

[sklar-careym]

Another issue is having 'gallon' in the volume field. Would we enter 1 Gallon in Volume column and 1 EA in UOM Column? or 1 Gallon in Volume Column and 1 GA in UOM Columns, or nothing in volume field, but 1 GA in UOM field?

[mwmalinowski]

@sklar-careym Can you give me a specific example, please?

[sklar-careym]

10-1627

[mwmalinowski]

I'm concerned with using GA in the UOM field because I think people will expect UOM Factor to be a whole number, and there's no reason that a product couldn't contain, say, 2.5 gallons.

Can you think of a compelling reason that we should use 1 EA with volumetrically-defined products rather than container-specific UOMs (e.g. 10-1627 as 1 JU because it's a 1 gallon jug)?

I think Jug (JU), Bottle (BO), and Jar (JR) would cover most chemical products. I'm not sure what we would use for powdered Sklar Kleen--Pail (PA), maybe?

Note: I'm only really thinking of these UOMs in terms of chemicals rather than containers (e.g. Medicine Cups). I would list that Medicine Cup as 1 EA rather than 1 CU.

@sklar-careym said: or nothing in volume field, but 1 GA in UOM field?

If we have a volume we should list it in the Volume field regardless of what we do with the UOM field.

[sklar-sherryp]

if we follow the way the UOM field is to be used as it is currently written, and we're talking about a gallon of a cleaning product, then either EA or JU should go in UOM.

If we are shipping just one gallon, I would say we use the more common EA.

If we are shipping more than just one gallon, I would say we use BX or CS.

I tend to think of UOM more in terms of shipping or packaging.

Then, this makes me wonder if we should stick to the most commonly used UOMs (EA, ST, PK, CS, BX) and try to stay away from Bottle, Jar, Jug altogether...?

Perhaps this is another time where we should consider renaming the actual field. Does using the word "measure" in "Unit of Measure" lead one to think about volume or length etc. too much?

[mwmalinowski]

I tend to think in terms of packaging usually; however, I also try to think in terms of "what will help someone verify that what they're looking at is what they ordered."

I do not think we should rename "Unit of Measure". It's a common term.

Technically, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures defines "unit of measurement" as:

a real scalar quantity, defined and adopted by convention, with which any other quantity of the same kind can be compared

I think the Wikipedia summary is more digestible:

A unit of measurement is a definite magnitude of a physical quantity, defined and adopted by convention or by law, that is used as a standard for measurement of the same physical quantity.[1] Any other value of the physical quantity can be expressed as a simple multiple of the unit of measurement. For example, length is a physical quantity. The metre is a unit of length that represents a definite predetermined length. When we say 10 metres (or 10 m), we actually mean 10 times the definite predetermined length called "metre".

I think this definition is somewhat at odds with our use of Box and Case. I do not think that minor conflict is reason enough to rename the entire field.