This description is divided into two parts. The first part contains a general description of reservation management, which describes reservations made on the same site as that on the ordering site. The second part contains information on supply chain reservations. Supply chain reservations can be performed from a customer order against the supplying sites. In situations where a customer order has a supply code for using an internal supplier, reservations against the site that the internal supplier represents, can also be performed with the supply chain reservation process.
There are two ways of reserving material for customer orders: automatic (the system performs the reservation) and manually (the user performs the reservation). Besides these, there are specific solutions for certain scenarios, such as inherited reservations or priority reservations.
The inventory parts and locations must meet the following prerequisites:
If all these prerequisites are fulfilled, the reservation functionality could use either of these rules depending on the setup on the site:
Note: The FIFO rule may be overruled in pallet-handling where customer order picking and refilling of parts from pallet locations to picking locations occur. Here, the priority is for pallet buffer > pallet deep > pallet location respectively.
or
Note: Manual reservations by the user will always have priority over the set rules.
The quantity of a customer order line to be reserved can be assigned to shipments as shipment lines. In other words, a shipment line is a subset of the quantity of a customer order line. When delivering through a shipment, the reservation is also done per shipment line. This implies that the quantity of a customer order line can be reserved in two different ways:
The priority when reserving a customer order line is to first reserve the quantities assigned to the shipment lines, starting with the oldest shipment first, and then reserve the quantity that is not assigned to any shipment. Note that the reserved quantity viewed on the customer order line is the sum of both these ways of reserving. A reservation record is created at reservation, in order to link the customer order line or shipment line to the reserved inventory parts in stock. In this reservation record, the shipment ID is saved either as the shipment ID of the shipment line reserved, or as zero (0) when reserving a quantity not assigned to any shipment.
The reservation function with availability check in IFS/Supply Chain is based on the assumption that the customer orders will be reserved in the same order as delivered. The availability check at the order registration makes this possible.
When the automatic reservation is triggered, a reservation job is started in the background. This means that the user does not receive an immediate response as to whether the reservation has succeeded or not. The user can follow up the order lines that did not get fully reserved in the Handle Customer Order Shortages window. When the full or partial quantity does not get reserved, a shortage record is created for the part.
When shipment lines are automatically reserved in the shipment, the order line appears in the Handle Customer Order Shortages window depending on whether or not a shipment line can be fully reserved.
The following parameters control how the reserve functionality works:
|
Backorder Option Selected on the Customer Order Header |
System Effects |
| No Partial Deliveries Allowed | Partial deliveries will not be allowed. If partial quantity is, for example, manually reserved, the creation of pick list will not succeed unless the full quantity is reserved for all lines on the order. However, once the pick list is created, it is possible to pick report with differences and deliver with differences which will result in the customer order being in the Partially Delivered status. |
| Incomplete Lines Not Allowed | Partial deliveries of orders will be allowed but each order line needs to be complete. Pick list will be created only for completely reserved order lines. However, once the pick list is created, it is possible to pick report with differences and deliver with differences which will result in the customer order being in the Partially Delivered status. |
| Incomplete Packages Not Allowed | Partial deliveries of lines are allowed but package parts must be complete. If there are incomplete packages reserved, they will not be included on the pick list. |
| Allow Incomplete Lines and Packages | Partial deliveries of lines will be allowed, including incomplete package part lines. Pick list will be created for all reserved and partially reserved order lines for both sales and package parts. |
When the Incomplete Packages Not Allowed option has been selected, the system will only reserve components that imply full packages. If there is not enough of components to complete a package, those components will not be reserved. For example, if the ordered package part has two components and only six of ten package parts can be completed, because there is not enough of the second component, components for six package parts will be reserved, delivered and invoiced.
If the Allow Incomplete Lines and Packages backorder option has been selected, then you can reserve and deliver incomplete package parts even though all the components are not available for creating complete packages. Even when there is not enough of all components to complete a package, the components which are available will be reserved. For example, if the ordered package part has two components and only six of ten package parts can be completed, because there is not enough of the second component, all available components for ten package parts will be reserved, delivered and invoiced.
The Allow Incomplete Packages check box on the Package Part/General tab has higher priority than the backorder option selected on the customer or customer order, i.e., even when the customer order allows the delivery of incomplete packages, if the setting on the package part does not allow incomplete packages, no incomplete packages will be reserved.
Even though the backorder option does not allow partial deliveries, you can manually connect the quantity of an order line to several shipments. For example, if you need to split into several shipments due to a transport capacity. However, in order to create a pick list for the shipment, the entire order line or order must be reserved.
Ways of Performing Automatic Reservation
You can reserve parts automatically in four ways: line-by-line, order-by-order, via a batch job or shipment-by-shipment. When reserving automatically the system will try to reserve the ordered quantity from the inventory location with the earliest expiration date or the earliest receipt date. The line-by-line reservation is performed in the Reserve Customer Order Lines window. The order-by order reservation is performed in the Reserve Customer Orders window. The batch job is performed in the Create Customer Order Reservations window. The shipment-by-shipment reservation is performed in the Shipment, Shipments and Consolidated Shipment windows. Note that any shipment lines connected to an order line will be reserved as well, when an order line is reserved via the first three ways of automatically reserving.
This way of reserving best suits situations with a lot of customer order lines where material is reserved as late as possible. It consists of scheduling a job in the Create Customer Order Reservations window, that handles the reservation of many order lines and connected shipment lines as a batch. Automatic reservation implies that the user does not need to actively do anything to reserve parts.
A scheduled job is defined to run, for example, once a day, where the system will reserve, following the criteria described above, all needed material, i.e. order lines with due date equal or earlier to the current date. The result being that the reserve function will also reserve all delayed orders. In this way you need to handle only the order lines that, due to one reason or another, can not be reserved automatically.
The following day's assignments are normally ready in the morning, as the reserve function has been run overnight.
The order lines that have been reserved are ready to be printed, or have already been printed. The order type
and the shipment type determines where the order
line and shipment line is found in the order/shipment flow. The
Handle Customer Order Shortages window will
display any order that has not been reserved, regardless of the reason, together with a message indicating what stopped
the order line from being reserved.
When the availability is not sufficient and backorders are allowed with the
option Allow Incomplete Lines and Packages, a fair share
allocation of the quantity is performed, to distribute the quantity in a fair
way. First it tries to satisfy the demands of partially delivered orders. If the
quantity is still available, the system then tries to reserve the material
starting with order lines with a passed due date (the older the due date the
higher the priority). If the quantity is still available, subsequent reservations are
made according to quantity proportions and customer priority (priority 1 is
higher than 2, etc). All orders are reserved such that the order with the
earliest planned ship date is reserved first.
A credit control of the customer and a full payment of advance invoices control on the customer order is performed when running the automatic reservation function.
When running the batch job per site is not suitable, the user can actively decide which specific orders to reserve and still let the automatic reservation logic determine the inventory parts in stock (expiration date and FIFO criteria or putaway zone ranking depending on site setup), following back order option logic and the use of availability check as described above.
Specific orders can be reserved in the Reserve Customer Orders window. A credit control of the customer and a full payment of advance invoices control on the customer order is performed when reserving customer orders.
The same effects can also be achieved by using an order type, where the reservation is triggered immediately after releasing the customer order or printing the order confirmation.
Instead of letting the system select the order lines to reserve, the user can actively decide the specific order lines but still let the automatic reservation logic determine the inventory parts in stock (expiration date and FIFO criteria or putaway zone ranking depending on site setup), following back order option logic and the use of availability check as described above.
Specific order lines can be reserved in the Reserve Customer Order Lines window. Neither credit control of the customer nor full payment of advance invoices control on the customer order is performed when reserving customer order lines.
Instead of doing the reservation for orders and order lines, it is possible to reserve a shipment. This can be used when you want to execute on a shipment level in order to reserve, pick, pack, deliver and close all lines of a shipment. Instead of letting shipment lines be automatically selected for reservation, the user can actively decide the specific shipment to reserve but still let the automatic reservation determine the inventory parts in stock (expiration date and FIFO criteria or putaway zone ranking depending on site setup), following back order option logic and the use of availability check as described above.
A single shipment can be reserved in the Shipment window. Multiple shipments can be reserved in the Shipments or Consolidated Shipment windows. A credit control of the customer and a full payment of advance invoices control is performed when reserving shipments.
The shipment type determines if the shipment proceeds with the shipment flow after the reservation. If a shipment line is not fully reserved, the order line will be displayed in the Handle Customer Order Shortages window, regardless of the reason, together with a message indicating what stopped the order line from being reserved.
When reserving manually, the user chooses which order lines and shipment lines to reserve and also which parts from stock shall be reserved: choose location, serial number, lot number and even reserve parts that have expired or have a WDR number. Manual reservations do not follow the prerequisites, the rules or the steering parameters of the automatic reservation.
The user might choose to execute manual reservations in cases of, for instance, orders with backlogs and high-priority orders. You can also decide from which inventory location the parts will be picked.
You can choose to reserve only a partial quantity when reserving manually. Any part can only be reserved once. If some parts or order lines are backlogged, they can be picked as soon as the parts become available in stock again. Consequently, the order line may have been reserved earlier due to partial delivery, and these previously reserved parts may already have been delivered to the customer as a partial delivery. This means that reservation is also allowed for order lines with the status Picked or Partial Delivered.
When manually reserving a package part (Manual Reservations for Customer Order line and Reserve Customer Order Lines) you reserve each component separately, i.e., you are splitting the package part. In this case it is possible to deliver only components of a package.
When reserving an order line with a connected supply pegging, the reservation will replace the connected pegging and the pegged quantity will be reduced by the same quantity that was reserved. However, if there is more than one supply pegged to the same demand, you will be notified to manually adjust the pegging before the reservation can be performed.
When an order line has supply method Shop Order or Purchase Order, the parts will be automatically reserved upon receiving them into the inventory.
You might want to reserve the materials directly at order line entry for specific parts or customer orders. Priority reservations are used in such cases. You activate this function either by applying a suitably designed order type or by setting a parameter in the inventory part record. If the full quantity cannot be reserved, the line cannot be saved.
The material is reserved following the automatic reservation functionality: parts cannot be expired and FIFO or putaway zone ranking depending on site setup. The backorder option is not followed, since the lines are saved one by one.
You can make both automatic and manual reservations by route ID. You can select and reserve orders for specific routes and delivery dates. The delivery dates are calculated when the order line is recorded by using the order stop time on the route.
The standard scenario when using routes is to query for a specific route, select all lines and reserve them. If, for some reason, there is a shortage, and the order line cannot be reserved in full, there will be no recalculation of the delivery dates for the remaining quantity. The system will only provide the correct dates when the order line is entered. If you always query for a route when reserving, the order line will reappear and the remaining quantity can be reserved for the next route day.
Specific rules are valid for customer orders connected to a purchase exchange order. If a serial number and/or a lot/batch number is defined for the exchange component (on the purchase exchange order side), only that specific serial and/or batch will be available for reservation.
If no serial number or lot/batch number is defined, all parts that meet the normal criteria will be available for reservation.
Specific rules are valid for customer orders connected to an external service order. If a serial number and/or lot/batch number is defined for the part to be sent for service (on the purchase order side), only that specific serial and/or batch will be available for reservation.
If no serial number or lot/batch number is defined, you will not be able to reserve any part.
To make reservations for customer order lines defined with an MRO supply code, you must use the MRO (maintenance, repair, and overhaul) process flow. You cannot manually reserve MRO customer order lines.
Project Inventory is an integral part of managing project procurement. A project owns its project inventory, ensuring that the material acquired to this project cannot be issued to fulfill other demands, either from another project or from non-project related demands. This project pegging makes it possible to distinguish between the project material and standard material. All planning tools in IFS Applications take this distinction into account.
Supply chain reservations are reservations that can be accomplished across a supply chain of internal orders between sites. The purpose is to reserve parts in advance, before the internal order flow has been executed. By doing this, you can be assured that parts are available for the external customer. To learn more about internal orders and supply chain management in IFS Applications, read the online help file about Internal Supply Chain Execution Flow.
Supply chain reservations can be used to resolve the sourcing needs for each customer order line. Sourcing is simply a method for determining the site (external or internal) that should supply the parts on the customer order. To learn more about sourcing, read the online help file about Customer Order Sourcing.
When using supply chain reservations, keep in mind that it is possible to reserve, and thus lock, unnecessary quantities of a part. This can lead to excessive inventory levels when replenishment orders are created too early to replenish available inventory. You can avoid this situation in some cases by using normal supply and demand calculations.
The functionality for supply chain reservations is almost the same as the functionality for normal onsite reservations. The difference is that reservations are made for parts located on other sites (supply sites) than the site on which the customer order was created. You can use supply chain reservations for inventory parts on both customer order and source lines. The same inventory part number must be used on all sites in the supply chain. You can perform supply chain reservations as long as the internal customer on the supply site has not been created.
When releasing a customer order with supply chain reservations, a purchase order is created and sent to the supply site. The supply site receives the order message, creates an internal customer order that will take over the supply chain reservation to be a normal on-site reservation connected to the internal customer order.
You can perform supply chain reservations for both single and pallet-handled parts. When the order includes package parts, supply chain reservations can be performed on the components.
Three different types of supply chain reservation are possible:
The outcome of a supply chain reservation is that a quantity of a part is physically reserved on an inventory part location.
On a customer order line, you can see which supply site the reservation has been made and what quantity of the part that has been reserved on each site. The same information can also be found on sourced lines.
As part of the supply chain reservations process, you also can specify the supply sites that internal sites can use to reserve parts. In other words, you can perform a site-to-site reservation setup. This setup is done in the Site to Site Reservation Setup window. On this tab, for each supply site, you will specify the demand sites that are allowed to perform reservations there. For each site-to-site combination, you should also define the default type of supply site reservation. This default will appear on the customer order line. (A reservation type of manual reservations indicates that either manual or automatic reservations should be performed, and a reservation type of instant reservations indicates that instant reservations should be created when a customer order line is saved.)
Other than actually reserving supply, the concept of supply chain reservations also includes the demand creation on supply sites. This means that as soon as a customer order line or source line against the supply site has been created, it will represent a future demand in the supply demand views on the supply site. This feature gives the supply site a better view into future demand so that it can plan inventory replenishment by either manufacturing or purchasing parts. When the internal order on supply site is created, it will take over the demand from the demand site.