Hi all,

Looking for some guidance / patterns from others who’ve done this in Odoo 18.

Context

We’re in manufacturing/packaging and have a classic 3-level physical structure:

• Raw material (e.g. paper in kg/lb)

• B100 – Unit level

  • Individual “unit” (formed piece), not sold directly
  • Produced from raw material (often by a subcontractor)

• B110 – Case level

  • Box of units (e.g. 2,300 units per case for Product A, 900 units per case for Product B, etc.)
  • This is the only level customers actually order
  • BOM: N × B100 + case carton + label + inserts, etc.

• Pallet (conceptual B120)

  • Stack of cases on a pallet (cases per pallet also varies by product)
  • Used only for storage and shipping logistics
  • We want to track pallet-level packaging materials (pallet, stretch wrap, corner boards), but customers never order “1 pallet” as a product line – they still order “X cases”.

Requirements / goals

1. Sales

   • Customers place orders only in cases (B110), not units and not pallets.

2. Planning & inventory

   • We need proper raw material planning:

     • Sales order → B110 (cases) → B100 (units) → raw material (paper in kg/lb).
   • We manage stock primarily in units and cases.
   • We do use subcontracting for some levels (e.g. subcontractor converts raw material → B100 units).

3. Logistics & packaging

   • In the warehouse we store and ship as pallets for obvious reasons (forklifts, racking, etc.).

   • Each pallet for a given product uses additional packaging materials:

     • Pallet
     • Stretch wrap
     • Corner boards, etc.
   • We’d like to track the consumption of those pallet packaging materials per pallet, but we do not sell pallets as a separate product.

What we’re doing today

Right now, we have:

• B100 (unit) – stockable product with BOM from raw material.
• B110 (case) – stockable product with BOM from B100 + case packaging.
• B120 (pallet) – stockable product with BOM from B110 + pallet packaging.

This works mechanically, but the main pain points are:

• Customers only ever order B110 (cases).
• We care about inventory and planning at unit and case level; B120 is just logistics + extra packaging.
• Maintaining B120 as a full product with its own BOM feels heavy and a bit unnatural, given it’s never sold and mostly just groups cases.

Questions

For those of you running similar flows in Odoo 18:

1. How do you model pallets when customers only order cases?

   • Do you keep a third product (B120) with its own BOM?
   • Or do you treat pallets strictly as product packaging / packages (using Product Packaging + Packages / Package Types), and avoid a B120 product entirely?

2. How do you account for pallet-level packaging materials (pallet, wrap, corner boards) if pallets are not ordered or planned as products?

   • Do you:

     • a) Periodically adjust consumption of pallet materials based on pallet count?
     • b) Use a “dummy” MO or work order per palletization batch?
     • c) Something else (e.g. automated consumption when packages of a certain type are created)?

3. Dynamic pack sizes per product

   • Our units per case and cases per pallet vary per product.
   • That makes using “Case” and “Pallet” as global Units of Measure tricky, since the ratios aren’t global.
   • Are you handling this purely via BOM quantities + Product Packaging per product? Any pitfalls?

4. Subcontracting interaction

   • We subcontract the B100 (unit) step: raw material → B100.
   • B110 (case) is typically packed in-house.

   • For those using subcontracting + multi-level BOMs + pallets, how are you wiring this so that:

     • Sales order for B110 (cases) triggers raw material planning all the way down
     • Subcontractor POs and “Resupply Subcontractor” flows still work cleanly
     • Pallets/packaging don’t over-complicate the model?

Any examples of how you’ve modeled this, or links to good community modules / patterns (e.g. around advanced packaging levels) would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance!