How Supply Is Considered in the Supply Chain Availability Search Mode

The results of the supply chain availability search are affected by a number of settings.

Settings That Affect the Supply Chain Availability Search Mode

The behavior of the supply availability search is primarily determined by four factors:

• Constraints specified on the fulfillment line, such as the specification of a ship-from warehouse and whether splits are allowed.

• Attribute settings for the rule that's being applied.

• The supply chain defined by the assignment set in use and the sourcing rules that it contains.

Additional settings determine other significant considerations. The following must be true for the supply chain availability search to consider capable-to-make when determining availability:

• The item is built from components, and the rule has been enabled to search for components and resources.

• Inventory is maintained at the component level.

• Modeling of bills-of-material and routings have been collected into the planning data repository from the applicable fulfillment systems.

How Supply Is Considered

If the fulfillment line has many constraints specified, such as Substitutions Not Allowed, the nature of the alternative options generated by the supply chain availability search changes. In the most constrained case, when a ship-from warehouse is specified and substitution and splits aren't allowed, planning options are generated from only the specified ship-from warehouse for the specified item, possibly by considering different shipping methods that deliver the item to the customer site.

The fewer constraints specified on the fulfillment line, the more possibilities the supply chain availability search can consider. For example, if a ship-from warehouse isn't specified, and splits and item substitutions are allowed, the supply chain availability search looks for the best possible ways of planning the fulfillment line by looking across all warehouses specified in the applicable sourcing rules and by considering splitting by date, or substituting items, or both. The backlog planning process determines a default availability option as well as availability options that represent the best possible availability from each warehouse.

Unless the constraints on the fulfillment line restrict it from doing so, the supply chain availability search always considers the supply for the item at other warehouses, also known as transfer capable-to-plan, and the supply for the item at suppliers, also known as buy capable-to-plan. If the rule being applied has enabled the consideration of components and resources, the supply chain availability search considers the availability of the components and resources consumed during manufacturing, also known as make capable-to-plan, For example, if the settings enable a capable-to-plan search, and an end item is made of two components, C1 and C2, which are assembled on a resource R1, if supply is available for the components, but not for the end time, the fulfillment line is planned by using the available supply of the components and by considering the resource availability.

Two more cost attributes are factored in for make capable-to-plan:

• The cost associated with resource consumption defined as cost per unit of resource consumed

• The cost of the components required to make the end item