Inventory and Assembly Item Support

Advanced Inventory Management supports inventory and assembly items. Transactions using kits or item groups are used in AIM, but only for member items. AIM is not run for kit/group parent items.

AIM runs for all items when you select Reorder Point as the replenishment method. On each item record, you can choose whether to run AIM for each variable: Preferred Stock Level, Reorder Point, and Lead Time. Check the Auto-calculate box next to the field.

You can also set the item record values for Safety Stock Level Days, Expected Demand Change, and whether to use Seasonal Demand.

AIM calculations are typically scheduled to run weekly. It is not a real-time calculation. Transactions are entered after the AIM calculations complete, and they aren't included. You can start a calculation manually from the Day of Week To Perform Calculation and Time of Day to Perform Calculation preferences.

If Preferred Stock Level, Reorder Point, and Lead Time are set to Auto-calculate, calculations proceed as follows:

Best Practice Using Auto-Calculation

After you turn on the Advanced Inventory Management feature, when setting up inventory records, don't immediately set up auto-calculation for stock levels and demand for ordering items. This is a best practice because if you don't have enough sales history when you start auto-calculation, the data might not be accurate.

Auto-calculation uses the full interval only if there are sales for the item before the interval starts. If not, it tries using half the interval. If there's still not enough data, the reorder point and preferred stock level stay the same. Later, you can enter manual metrics, or auto-calculations can run at a later date when there's enough sales data.

Important:

Avoid entering a set value for the inventory level at first. Later, you can turn on auto-calculation for item records using a mass update. For more information about mass updates, see Mass Updates.

Related Topics

General Notices