Abc analysis: a classification of items in an inventory according to importance defined in terms of criteria such as sales volume and purchase volume. Abc classification

Shop Floor Production Control Systems: The systems that assign priority to each shop order, maintaining work-in-process quantity information, providing actual output data for capacity control purposes, and providing quantity by location by shop order for work-in-process inventory and accounting purposes.
Short Shipment: Piece of freight missing from shipment as stipulated by documents on hand.
Shrinkage: Reductions of actual quantities of items in stock, in process, or in transit. The loss may be caused by scrap, theft, deterioration, evaporation, etc.
Sigma: A Greek letter commonly used to designate the standard deviation of a population.
Six-Sigma Quality: A term generally used to indicate that a process is well controlled, I.e., tolerance limits are +-6 sigma (3.4 defects per million events) from the centerline in a control chart. The term is usually associated with Motorola which named one of its key operations initiatives Six-Sigma Quality.
SKU: *See Stock-Keeping Unit (SKU)
Skills Matrix: A visible means of displaying people's skill levels in various tasks. Used in a team environment to identify the skills required by the team and which team members possess those skills.
Slotting: Warehouse slotting is defined as the placement of products within a warehouse facility. Its objective is to increase picking efficiency and reduce warehouse handling costs through optimizing product location and balancing the workload.
Small Group Improvement Activity: An organizational technique for involving employees in continuous improvement activities. Also see: Quality Circle.
SMART: See Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Based.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Based (SMART): A shorthand description of a way of setting goals and targets for individuals and teams.
SOP: Standard Operating Procedure.
SOW: *See Statement of Work (SOW)
Spam: A computer industry term referring to the act of sending identical and irrelevant postings to many different newsgroups or mailing lists. Usually this posting is something that has nothing to do with the particular topic of a newsgroup or of no real interest to the person on the mailing list.
SPC: See Statistical Process Control (SPC).
Split Delivery: A method by which a larger quantity is ordered on a purchase order to secure a lower price, but delivery is divided into smaller quantities and is spread out over several dates to control inventory investment, save storage space, etc.
Spot Demand: Demand with a short lead time that's difficult to estimate. Usually supply for this demand is provided at a premium price. An example of spot demand would be when there's a spiked demand for building materials as a result of a hurricane.
Staging: Pulling material for an order from inventory before the material is required. This action is often taken to identify shortages, but it can lead to increased problems in availability and inventory accuracy. Also see: Accumulation Bin