Get Material Category from SKU
As a Materials Coordinator, I frequently work with product SKUs that are structured to include a material category identifier as the very first character. For example, SKUs starting with 'W' denote Wood products, 'M' for Metal, 'P' for Plastic, etc. My task is to quickly extract this first character from a list of SKUs to categorize items, especially to identify all 'Wood' products for inventory management, ordering, and reporting purposes. Manually extracting this for hundreds or thousands of SKUs is time-consuming and prone to errors.
=LEFT(A2,1) How it works: The LEFT function in Excel is designed to extract a specified number of characters from the beginning (left side) of a text string. In this scenario, `LEFT(A2,1)` tells Excel to look at the text in cell A2 and return only the first character from the left. This is perfect for isolating the material category identifier when it's consistently the initial character of the SKU, allowing for quick categorization, filtering, and analysis of inventory based on material type.
Data Setup
| SKU | Description |
|---|---|
| W-12345-A | Wooden Shelf Bracket |
| M-67890-B | Metal Support Rod |
| P-11223-C | Plastic Container Lid |
| W-98765-D | Wood Panel |
| G-54321-E | Glass Sheet |
Step-by-Step Guide
Select the cell where you want the extracted material category to appear (e.g., B2, assuming your first SKU is in A2).
Type the formula `=LEFT(A2,1)` into the selected cell.
Press Enter. The first character of the SKU in A2 will be displayed.
Drag the fill handle (the small green square at the bottom-right corner of the selected cell) down to apply the formula to the rest of your SKUs in column A.