Understanding Fence Dates

You can use schedule fences and preferences to control how the system maintains records for new releases and changed quantities. A firm shipment fence specifies the number of days of demand for which you create sales orders. The planned forecast fence specifies the number of days of demand for which you create forecasts.

When the system receives forecast releases and shipping schedules, the system interprets the transactions and messages and creates the demand detail records. Each record is identified as either plan or firm, with a period indicator as daily, weekly, or monthly.

Based on the preferences and fence settings, the system identifies the demand records to create or update sales orders or to create forecasts. The dates the system uses are a horizon start date, firm shipping fence date, and a plan forecast fence date.

For example, you can specify the number of days, beginning at the horizon start date, of firm demand to be used to generate sales orders. If the horizon start date is January 1, with six fence days, the system creates sales orders through January 7. If the customer does not transmit a horizon start date (HZSD), you can use the Release Date field (RLSDJ) for this purpose.

Firm demand that lies past the firm shipping fence is informational only. The system does not use this demand to generate sales orders or forecasts.

For planning fences, the system identifies the number of days from the horizon start date of the plan demand to be used to generate forecasts. The system does not create sales orders from plan demand. Any plan demand that lies past the plan forecast fence is informational only.