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Inventory Relationships

An inventory location is linked to other locations by relationships that define physical spaces, replenishment sources, fulfillment sources, and cycle counting lists. An inventory structure includes a network of these relationships.

You can implement an inventory structure in the following ways:

• Create an inventory location (for example, a warehouse), maintain the products at this location (in inventory levels), and then associate the physical location with the inventory level.
• Assign locator numbers to logically divide an inventory location. Locator codes have values such as A1S3B7, meaning Aisle 1, Shelf 3, and Bin 7. A locator number does not imply an inventory type (for example, a bin). Use the locator numbers, along with the locator order, to optimize shipping and cycle counting.
• Define each aisle, shelf, and bin as a separate inventory location. Only bin inventory has products. Typically only 1 or 2 products exist in each bin. The inventory name can reflect the combination of location and product. You can link these different inventory locations to each other with the Sublevel relationship type. This relationship type indicates, for example, that Aisle 1 is a sublevel inventory location of Warehouse.

When fulfilling orders, generating cycle counting lists, or running the Replenishment Engine for a warehouse, all inventories below the Warehouse level (and connected through sublevels) are automatically considered.

To improve performance (for example, to avoid traversing the inventory structure every time you want to find all sublevels of inventory for a warehouse), Siebel Field Service uses a denormalized table. This table stores every child, direct child, or grandchild (to any number of levels) of a parent inventory. For example, an inventory hierarchy is defined as follows:

• Inventory A is a parent of Inventories B, C, and D
• Inventory B is a parent of inventories E and F

Table 29 shows some entries in the denormalized table.

You can also relate inventory locations to each other through replenishment. Set fulfillment and replenishment relationships between inventory locations for warehouses, and not for lower levels (for example, aisles, bins, or shelves). When using relationships, the Fulfillment, Replenishment, and Part Locator Engines automatically search for products at lower levels by using sublevel relationships. Configuring a replenishment relationship to indicate that a field office replenishes a trunk might result in overstocking the trunk inventory if the trunk location is already a sublevel of parent inventory.