1. Order Management
  2. Order Fulfillment and Shipping
  3. Order Fulfillment Automation
  4. Automatic Location Assignment

Automatic Location Assignment

The Automatic Location Assignment feature lets you configure NetSuite to assign fulfillment locations automatically to sales order lines. To enable the feature, go to Setup > Company > Enable Features. On the Transactions subtab, under the Shipping & Receiving section, check the Automatic Location Assignment box. After enabling the feature, you must then complete several setup tasks. Some setup tasks are required, whereas others are optional and depend on how you want to use the feature. Mandatory setup tasks include the following:

See Setting Up Automatic Location Assignment for details about the steps involved.

Automatic Location Assignment and Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment

When the Intercompany Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment feature is enabled in your account, you can assign locations from other subsidiaries to sales order lines automatically. Additional configuration steps are required to set up the Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment feature. See Intercompany Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment for more information.

You assign locations from other subsidiaries automatically by creating rules that take locations in other subsidiaries into account. You can select individual subsidiaries or all subsidiaries, as well individual locations or all locations in the subsidiaries. See Specifying Location Criteria in a Rule.

When you enable Intercompany Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment, the Inventory Location column is shown on all sales order forms, but can be hidden by customizing the form. The automatic location assignment engine sets the fulfillment location in the Inventory Location column. If you want to set a fulfillment location manually, you must also specify it in the Inventory Location column.

Note:

If you configure a preferred location for an item, the location is set in the Location column when you add the item to the sales order. It is not set in the Inventory Location column. When Cross-Subsidiary Fulfillment is enabled, ALA takes the Inventory Location column into account when assigning locations to sales order lines. Because the Inventory Location column does not have a location, ALA may assign a location that is different from the preferred location.

Automatic Location Assignment and Supply Allocation

When allocating inventory to sales order lines, the Supply Allocation feature considers both current and future inventory. The Automatic Location Assignment (ALA) feature works with the Supply Allocation feature to accelerate and enhance the order fulfillment process:

  1. ALA calls Supply Allocation to determine which locations have the available supply and when this supply is available.

    1. If there is supply available before the requested ship date, Supply Allocation returns a list of locations and dates when this supply is available. These calculations are based on the allocation strategies defined on sales order lines or the Available to Promise (ATP) Lead Time set for the item record location. The allocation strategy considers different options such as the type of inventory (current and future) and the allocation period restrictions. For more information, see Creating Allocation Strategies.

    2. If there is no supply available before the requested ship date, Supply Allocation considers locations that have supply arriving after this date or that have an ATP Lead Time.

      Note:

      The date on which an item is required to ship is known as requested ship date in Automatic Location Assignment and as supply required by date in Supply Allocation.

  2. After Supply Allocation provides a list of locations and dates, Automatic Location Assignment then chooses the best location according to the ALA configuration and rules.

    If Supply Allocation cannot provide a list of locations, ALA sets locations on sales order lines provided there are backorder rules defined in the configuration.

  3. After Automatic Location Assignment assigns locations to sales order lines, Supply Allocation allocates the supply and sets the expected ship dates.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

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