Warehouse Replenishment Planning

The Warehouse Replenishment Planning (WRP) module of the Oracle Field Service suite is used to plan and replenish inventories for any warehouse in a field service supply chain. Warehouse Replenishment Planning is not designed to plan technician trunk stock inventories. Trunk stock is planned using the Planner’s Desktop functionality.

This chapter covers the following topics:

• Overview: Planning Field Service Warehouse Inventories
• Overview: Planned Order Release Automation
• Integration with Repair Execution
• Plan Selection
• Overview: Warehouse Replenishment Plan Page

Overview: Planning Field Service Warehouse Inventories

Planning warehouse inventories in a field service supply chain requires a different approach than planning warehouses in a manufacturing or product distribution supply chain. Some of the more significant differences are:

• High volume defective returns.

• Higher volume parts repair.

• Redeployment and utilization of excess inventory.

• Forecasts determined by product population and component failure rate.

• Supersession impacts.

Supply Types Used in WRP

Supply types are key to the warehouse replenishment planning process in field service. A cost-effective approach will use excess and defective parts before ordering additional new parts that could grow the inventory unnecessarily.

Spares Management uses the Excess, Repair, and New-Buy supply types.

Excess

Changes in field service activity can cause the level of inventory to exceed the quantity needed to support planned service activities. Excess inventory is a low-cost supply type that only needs to be redeployed and should be used wherever possible at other warehouse locations when needed.

Repair

Some defective parts recovered during field service operations are repairable. Repairable returns are typically a medium-cost supply source. After consolidation, defective parts can be incorporated into the warehouse planning process and should be repaired as needed, after utilization of excess, to replenish the warehouse being planned.

New-Buy

New-buy purchases, which can be either internal or external, are used when additional parts are required in the supply chain. The new-buy purchase is usually more costly than either excess or repair sources.

Note: To achieve low inventory investment and reduce risk of obsolescence, the replenishment of parts should be planned by consuming inventories of excess parts, and repairing defective parts, before ordering new-buy parts.

Recommendation Types

Warehouse Replenishment Planning generates exception recommendations needed to balance supply and demand.

Seeded Recommendation Types

Recommendation Type	Description	Related Business Objective
Planned Order Inside of Lead Time	Recommended replenishment orders by supply type with a need date inside of lead time.	Service Level
Planned Order Outside of Lead Time	Recommended replenishment orders by supply type with a need date outside of lead time.	Service Level
Reschedule In	Parts are on order, but the projected on hand balance before the scheduled delivery is tracking too low, based on the Reschedule In business rule. Schedule the delivery earlier to eliminate gaps or situations where the projected on hand balance is potentially putting service at risk.	Service
Reschedule Out	Parts are on order but are due to arrive before they are needed, causing the projected on-hand balance to track too high based on the Reschedule Out business rule. Schedule the delivery later to avoid an inventory level that is higher than needed.	Inventory Investment
Review Superseded Parts	This part has been replaced by a different part and has either an open order, manual forecast, or population forecast.	Service and Inventory Investment
Unutilized Excess	A current new-buy on order is preventing the excess inventory at other warehouses from being used.	Asset Utilization
Unutilized Repair	A current new-buy on-order is preventing the defective inventory assigned to that warehouse from being used.	Asset Utilization
Excess On-Order	The on hand plus on order exceeds the Excess On-Order Limit.	Inventory Investment
Automated Orders	The Create Warehouse Replenishment Data program uses the Order Automation business rule associated to the warehouse to determine which planned orders to automate. Automated orders can be excess, repair, and new-buy.

Supersession Impacts

Supersessions can have major impacts on the planning process. The supersession definition used in Warehouse Replenishment Planning is defined in Spares Management.

The Supersession in Spares Management is defined as follows:

• Replaced item: Part that has been superseded.

• Superseding item: Replacement part.

• Repair to item: This identifies the highest part in the supersession chain to which the replaced part can be updated and repaired. The Repair To item can be the same as the superseding item or it can be a different item.

• Reciprocal: This is either Unilateral or Bilateral, which defines whether the superseded part can be used to fill an order for the superseding part. In Bilateral, the superseded part can be used. In Unilateral, the superseded part cannot be used. In Bilateral, either part can be used to fill an order for the other part.

• Disposition: This field indicates whether the replaced item can still be used or should be scrapped. Use to Depletion (UTD) indicates that the superseded part can still be used.

• The Start Date and End Date columns are used for effectivity and expiration of supersessions.

Supersession Impact on the Superseding (Replacement) Part in the Warehouse Replenishment Planning Process:

• The superseding part defective inventory includes the superseded part defective inventory when the superseding part is the same as the Repair To for the superseded part. In other words, the superseded part can be upgraded to the superseding part.

• The usage history of the superseding part includes usage for the superseded parts in the supersession chain.

• The usage forecast for the superseding part is based on the combined usage of all parts in the supersession chain.

• The defective returns history for the superseding part includes defective returns of the superseded parts when the superseding part is the same as the Repair To for the superseded part.

• Repairable Returns are based on the combined defective returns based on the Repair To of the superseded part.

Supersession Impact on the Superseded Part:

• The superseded part is shown in the header region of the Warehouse Replenishment Plan page.

• Planning recommendations are suppressed.

• Recommendation for Review Superseded Parts appears if one of the following applies:

  • On-order quantity is greater than zero.

  • Population forecast exists.

  • Manual forecast exists.

Overview: Planned Order Release Automation

Warehouses in the field service supply chain are in constant need of replenishment. To replenish these warehouses, large volumes of planned orders are required to manage that replenishment.

Large volumes of planned orders will occur for the following reasons:

• Large number of parts: Long service cycles are required to support a multitude of old product.

• Large number of warehouses: Local warehouses operating in close support of the technician are required when service level agreements dictate service within the same day.

• Frequent planning cycles: Needed to react to the latest usage trends and supersession activity.

• Supersessions: Superseded parts need to be reviewed when there are open orders or manual forecasts.

• Multiple supply types: Excess, repair, and new-buy can all be used on the same part depending on the need and availability of the excess and defective inventory.

The planned order release automation functionality in Warehouse Replenishment Planning (WRP) will assist in the handling of large volumes of planned orders. With the automation feature the actual order will be automatically created from the planned order when automation business rules have been met. The planned order automation gives the planner the ability to automate the more routine planned orders leaving them with more time to manage and review the planned order exceptions.

Business Rule Parameters

For each supply type you specify business rule parameters for both internal and external ordering. Excess by definition is only internal.

This table describes the automation parameters:

Parameter	Description
Value Limits	Dollar value of a planned order. If the actual value of the planned order is less than the Value Limit, then the planned order will be a candidate for automation based on that parameter. (Actual value = Planned Order Quantity x Standard Cost) Important: Parts with zero cost will be excluded from automation.
Tracking Signal	Measure of forecast error for the part being planned. If the actual tracking signal fell within the minimum and maximum parameters, then the planned order would be a candidate for automation based on that parameter.
Lead Time	The Need date of a planned order falls inside of the lead time or outside of the lead time. Using the lead time parameter, the planner could select for automation those orders inside of lead time or outside of lead time or both.

Process Flow

The planned order release automation process consists of these steps:

1. Create order automation business rules.

   You create business rules by specifying certain parameters for each supply type. The parameters include:

   • Value Limits: Dollar value for a planned order.

   • Tracking Signal: Measure of forecast error for the part being planned.

   • Lead Time: Whether the planned order has a need date inside of lead time, outside of lead time, or both.

   Important: All applicable parameters must be met for the planned order to be automated.

   For more information on defining order automation business rules, see Defining and Assigning Order Automation Business Rules in the Oracle Field Service Implementation Guide.

2. Associate the order automation rule to a warehouse you are planning in WRP using the Planner's Desktop window.

   For more information on assigning the rule to a warehouse, see Defining and Assigning Order Automation Business Rules in the Oracle Field Service Implementation Guide.

3. Create warehouse replenishments plans.

   Plans are created after running the three WRP concurrent programs:

   • Usage for Recommendations program.

   • Process Supersede Items program.

   • Create Warehouse Replenishment Data program.

     The Create Warehouse Replenishment Data program creates the planned orders and does the release automation.

     For more information, see Creating Warehouse Replenishment Plans.

4. Using the Automated Orders recommendation type in the Find Warehouse Replenishment Plans page the parts where automated orders were created can be selected and the individual plans reviewed if necessary.

   The individual orders that were automated can be seen in the Recommendation section of the Warehouse Replenishment Plan page.

   The actual orders that were automated can be seen in the Current On-order section of the Plan.

5. A summary of automated orders can also be seen in the Log File of the Create Warehouse Replenishment Data program.

Documents Automated

Internal orders and purchase requisitions are created from the automation process. This table describes the different documents that are created during the planned order release automation process:

Supply Type	Internal/External	Documents Automated	Comment
Excess	Internal	Internal Order	Moves excess from one warehouse to fill need at another.
Excess	External	N/A	Excess is not applicable to external.
Repair	Internal	Internal Order to ship defectives to the repair depot Depot Repair Order Internal Order to ship repaired parts to the warehouse being replenished	Integration with Depot Repair.
Repair	External	Purchase Requisition	Integration with External Repair Execution.
New-Buy	Internal	Internal Order	New-Buy when sourcing is another Inventory organization.
New-Buy	External	Purchase Requisition	New-Buy when sourcing is a Vendor.

Automated Planned Order Creation

The Create Warehouse Replenishment Data concurrent program uses the order automation business rule to determine which of the planned orders will be automated. The Automation Rule uses three parameters to control automation for each supply type: value limit, tracking signal, and lead time. For each supply type, parameters are provided for internal and external except for excess which is only internal.

Here are some examples of what will occur during the planned order release automation process for each parameter.

With the value limit parameter, any planned order value less than the indicated value will be automated. For example, if the Internal Value for Excess was set to 1000 USD, then any applicable planned order with value less than 1000 USD will be automated, consistent with the other parameters.

With the tracking signal parameter, any planned order for a part where the actual tracking signal is greater than the minimum and less than the maximum will be automated, consistent with the other parameters. For example, if the minimum parameter was set at minus 3 (-3) and the maximum parameter was set at plus 4 (+4), and if the actual tracking signal for the part was +1, then the planned order for that part would be automated. If the tracking signal was less than -3 or greater than +4, then the planned order will not be automated.

With the lead time parameter, automation can be selected for planned orders inside of lead time, outside of lead time, or both. For example, if the Inside Lead Time parameter was set as Inside for the supply type and the Need Date for the planned order is inside of lead time, then the planned order will be automated, consistent with other parameters.

Important: All parameters must be met for the automation to occur. For example, if the value parameter is met but the tracking signal is not met, then the planned order will not be automated.

Integration with Repair Execution

Oracle Spares Management integrates Warehouse Replenishment Planning with Repair Execution to manage the execution of internal and external repair. Repair is one of the supply types in Warehouse Replenishment Planning.

The process begins in Warehouse Replenishment Planning:

• Defective parts are available for repair in one or more of the defective warehouses.

• Warehouse Replenishment Planning based on need, produces planned repair orders.

• The planner reviews and executes a planned repair order to create either a repair order in Oracle Depot Repair for internal repair, or a purchase requisition for external repair. For internal repair, the internal orders required to ship into and out of the depot repair operation are also produced.

• Integrated Repair Execution functionality manages the repair process. External Repair Execution provides a consolidated view of all documents and repair process details. For more information about external repair execution functionality, see the External Repair Execution chapter in this guide.

  The repair program is defined in the Repair region of the MPS/MRP Planning tab of the Inventory Organization Item window. Related setup documentation appears in the Field Service Implementation Guide.

Plan Selection

Use the Find Warehouse Replenishment Plans page to find and select plans by:

• Organization

• Item

• Recommendation Type

• Inventory Class

A table presents the retrieved plans. See Accessing Warehouse Replenishment Plan Details.

Overview: Warehouse Replenishment Plan Page

Oracle Warehouse Replenishment Planning provides the following functionality:

• Save plans from previous planning cycles.

• Regenerate plans.

• Horizontal time phased view.

• Forecast based on population and failure rate of parts.

• Forecast of defective returns.

• Manually adjust or replace forecast.

• Projected planned orders by source type.

• Projected on-hand and available inventory balances.

The Warehouse Replenishment Planning page organizes information into the following page title, fields, and expandable regions:

Elements of the Warehouse Replenishment Planning Page

Page Element	Description
Item at a warehouse (title)	This page title is determined by the plan you select from the Find Warehouse Replenishment Plan page.
Planner (field)	Planner or buyer responsible for this item.
Item Cost (field)	Cost per-unit for the item.
Saved Plans (menu)	Drop-down menu lists previously saved plans.
Planning Parameters by Supply Type (region)	Planning parameters can be set individually for each supply type.
Current On-Hand Balance (region)	Displays the item current on-hand, available, and excess quantities by inventory organization and supply type.
Plan (region)	Horizontal period by period view of requirements, current on-order, planned orders, forecast of repairable returns, and projected balances.
Execute Planned Orders (region)	Planned orders by source type and supplier. To execute planned orders, select them, and then click Create Orders.
Recommendations (region)	Displays action messages by type, due date, and order quantity for excess on-order, rescheduling orders in or out, unutilized inventory, and superseded parts. Automated orders will also be shown.
Manual Forecast (region)	This region is used to manually adjust or replace the usage forecast.
Usage History (region)	This region displays usage quantities for this part by time period. Used to evaluate usage forecasts.
Defective Returns History	Displays the quantity of defective parts returned by time period. Used to evaluate the repairable returns forecast.
Graph	Quantity versus time line graph displays Total Requirements, Current On-Order, Current Balance, Planned Orders, and Planned Balance.
Notes	This text box is provided for adding notes to track significant events related to the part.