Configuration of Order Fulfillment

Order fulfillment requirements differ from organization to organization. PeopleSoft Inventory provides a wide variety of fulfillment processing options, giving you the flexibility to design the methods that best fits your needs. These methods fall into two categories:

• Direct processing

• Auto processing

Direct and auto-processing can be used separately or combined enabling you to tailor one or more fulfillment flows to match your physical environments for shipping stock.

Direct Processing

The direct processing methods enable you to select demand lines from any fulfillment state and place them directly in the desired downstream state; bypassing the in-between fulfillment steps. For example, an unfulfilled order can be shipped in one step, using one process. This enables users to release orders and ship orders from any previous fulfillment state, eliminating the need to run prerequisite processes in order to print pick plans or to ship demand lines.

Direct processing is launched by all process pages, online pages, and EIPs except the picking confirmation processes and the Deplete On Hand Qty process. Some process pages, online pages, and EIPs send demand lines one step downstream while others can send demand lines down more than one step. For example, the Reserve Materials process page sends orders from the unfulfilled state to the releasable state, one step down. However, the Front End Shipping Request process page can send orders from the unfulfilled or releasable state to the shipped state.

Auto Processing

The auto processing methods enables you to combine and run multiple fulfillment steps together and the system enforces all the rules and restrictions of each fulfillment step included. Auto processing does not string together multiple programs in process-scheduled jobs; it is a fulfillment engine process.

This auto-processing methods differs from the direct processing methods in that the rules of each fulfillment step are enforced. For example, if you use auto-processing to send an order from the releasable state to the shipped state, then the system will enforce any picking rules, including not picking from any restricted stock quantities. However, if you use direct processing to move an order from the releasable state to the shipped state, then the system selects the stock quantities that you direct, regardless of the picking rules.

Configuration Options

This section reviews some of the order fulfillment configurations that could be used in your environment.