Fulfillment Steps

Reservation

The reservation processes complete three tasks:

Reserve inventory stock to items defined as soft-reserve.
Promise stock to items defined as Available-to-Promise (ATP) items.
Move demand lines from the unfulfilled state to the releasable state once they have met the requirements of the applicable reservation and backorder rules. During this task, the backorder decision may be made, allowing for the creation or cancellation of the backorder. Depending on the applicable backorder rule, the backorder decision may be delayed until shipping time.

Each task can be performed independently. For example, a reservation process might reserve available quantity to a demand line and still keep it in the unfulfilled state because it did not meet the criteria of the reservation rules to be set to the releasable state. In addition, a reservation process can simply release demand lines downstream with no type of reservation if the item is not defined for soft-reserve or promise or if the reservation and backorder rules instruct the process to release a shortage downstream. A demand line can stay in the unfulfilled state and be partially or fully soft-reserved or promised.

Reservations can be initiated several different ways:

The Reserve Materials process launched directly from the process page, a link on another page, or by auto-processing.
The online reservations program launched from sales order entry in PeopleSoft Order Management or material stock request (MSR) entry in PeopleSoft Inventory. The online reservations program gives immediate feedback about the quantities reserved or promised and the releasable state.
- For material stock requests (MSRs), you choose the method used at order entry time; the online reservations process or the Reserve Materials process.
- For sales orders, online reservations is initiated if the Reserve at Save check box has been selected on the Order Management Definition component for the order management business unit.
The online reservations program launched from a work order in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management. The work order reservation rule defined within PeopleSoft Maintenance Management determines when the work order demand line is reserved. To override the reservation rule setting and reserve immediately, you can use the Reserve button on the Work Order- Schedules: Inventory page in PeopleSoft Maintenance Management.
The Inventory_Reservation EIP.
The Fulfillment Workbench with the action of reserve.
The Shortage Workbench can be used to soft-reserve or promise stock online and set lines to the releasable state. You can also use the workbench to unreserve or unpromise stock and set the demand line back to the unfulfilled state.

At the end of the Reserve Materials process or the Fulfillment Requests process, the Unreserved Demand Lines Report (INS6400) can be generated to allow viewing of all demand lines that did not pass reservations processing.

See Understanding Inventory Reservations.

Order Release

This step is a process that releases demand lines for picking by moving the line from the releasable state to the released state. On the Order Release process, you can select the Create Allocations action to allocate stock for the demand line (push pick plan). An allocation means that quantity in a specific material storage location has been reserved for a particular demand line. You can also choose to not create an allocation, requesting that the Order Release process just make suggestions (pull pick plan) without allocating stock at the material storage location level. The default value for allocation can be defined at the inventory business unit level for all order release processes using the Setup Fulfillment-Order Release page. In addition, the Order Release process can generate:

An SQR picking plan report for printing.
An electronic picking extract file for electronic data collection devices.
The Shipping Order Release EIP is an outbound service operation that sends the demand lines to a warehouse management system (WMS) for picking. Data can also be sent to a third-party system to produce RFID tags.
Bar code labels, carton labels, and item usage labels on the printed or electronic picking plan.

Note:

A material storage location's on-hand quantity and reserved or allocated quantity are maintained on the PHYSICAL_INV record.

See Understanding the Picking Process.

See Defining Item Quantities.

Picking Feedback

Once you have physically picked the stock, enter picking results. When you have released demand lines to picking with an allocation, then the system assumes that you picked from the material storage locations specified in the hard allocation. You must enter exceptions to the allocations on the pick batch ID before confirming the pick results. When you have released demand lines to picking without an allocation, then the system does not know where to pull the stock from. In this case, you must enter all the picking results with the material storage locations used. The picking results can be entered into PeopleSoft Inventory by using:

The Material Picking Feedback page to enter the results manually.
The Inventory Picking inbound EIP and process to record results recorded on electronic data collections devices.
The Fulfillment Workbench with the action of pick confirm.
The Inventory Pick Confirm EIP.
The Shipping Notification EIP to receive picking results from a warehouse management system (WMS).

Once picking results have been entered, the demand lines are marked for confirmation.

Picking Confirmation

Once picking results have been entered, use the Picking Confirmation process to:

Move the demand lines from the released state to the confirmed state.
Decrease the onhand quantities for the appropriate material storage locations and prepares the demand lines for shipment processing. For push picking plans, the Picking Confirmation process also relieves the allocations created by the Order Release process.

The Picking Confirmation process can be launched directly from the process page, a link on the Material Picking Feedback page, or by auto-processing.

Packing

After running the Picking Confirmation process and before shipping orders, you can pack stock into shipping containers. The PeopleSoft Inventory packing feature enables you to create multiple levels of shipping containers and to keep track of how each container is packed. Shipping container information is listed on packing lists, advanced shipping notices (ASN), and is stored for historical inquiry purposes.

You can also use the Shipping Request transaction or the Pick Confirm transaction to create shipping containers. In addition, you can create shipping containers earlier in the fulfillment process by using the electronic data collection shipping container transactions to create single-level containers during picking. The electronic data collection transactions enable you to convert storage containers into shipping containers for tracking purposes.

To pack stock into shipping containers, use:

The Packing Session component.
The Inventory Shipping Container EIP to receive shipping container data packed by a third-party application, such as, electronic data collection systems and warehouse management systems.

Shipping

In the shipping business process, demand lines are moved from any previous fulfillment state to the shipped state. The process also includes assigning demand lines to a shipping ID, entering or changing shipping information, generating backorders, and creating the necessary shipping documents.

To move orders to the shipped state, you can use any of the following methods:

The Shipping/Issues component.
The Ship and Invoice process page.
The Fulfillment Workbench with the actions of pick confirm, front-end ship, or ship.
The Pick Confirm EIP.
The Picking Confirmation process page.
The Front End Shipping Request process page.

Important:

Front end shipping does not support shipping staged date-controlled items.

Note:

Shipping kits can degrade performance.
The Inventory Front End Shipping EIP.
The Shipping Request process page.
The Inventory Shipping EIP.

Depletion

The Deplete On Hand Quantity (Depletion) process completes the final step in order fulfillment by; reviewing all the demand lines that have been shipped, depleting the Inventory business unit for the shipped stock (that is, reducing the on-hand balance and removing the soft-reserve for shipped materials), creating the costing records in the transaction history table (TRANSACTION_INV), and changing the demand lines state to depleted. Once this process has been run, the demand lines cannot be unshipped. The Deplete On Hand Quantity process can be launched directly from the process page, the Shipping/Issues component, the Express Issues page, or by auto-processing.