Time Fence

Use a time fence to fine tune your supply chain search. You can set a time fence for infinite availability and for available-to-promise (ATP).

You can specify the number of days for the time fence, or you can select from one of these lead times to specify how long the time fence lasts:

Total lead time
Cumulative manufacturing lead time
Cumulative total lead time

You can set different fences.

Infinite Fence	ATP Fence
Set this fence to specify how long to wait before considering your supply is infinite. If the requested date happens. Before the time fence expires. Promising does a supply chain search. After the time fence expires. Promising promises on the requested date, doesn't check availability, and doesn't consume actual supply. Assume you know supply is usually available for most items after 10 days. You don't want to use the infinite availability mode because you prefer to provide more accurate promising results for most orders. But sometimes you can't promise the order in under 10 days, so you set this fence to say "after 10 days, we'll just assume its available". For another example, you know supply is almost always available after your factory finishes building the item, so you set this fence to Cumulative Manufacturing Lead Time.	Set this fence to make sure Promising doesn't consider short term supply for a long term order. For example, if you receive a long term order before you receive a short term order, this time fence will prevent Promising from pegging existing supply for the long term order. If the requested date happens: Before the time fence expires. Promising looks for on-hand supply that already exists before it looks at supply that you have to build or procure. After the time fence expires. Promising looks for supply that you have to build or procure before it looks at on-hand supply that already exists.

Infinite Fence

ATP Fence

Set this fence to specify how long to wait before considering your supply is infinite.

If the requested date happens.

Before the time fence expires. Promising does a supply chain search.
After the time fence expires. Promising promises on the requested date, doesn't check availability, and doesn't consume actual supply.

Assume you know supply is usually available for most items after 10 days. You don't want to use the infinite availability mode because you prefer to provide more accurate promising results for most orders. But sometimes you can't promise the order in under 10 days, so you set this fence to say "after 10 days, we'll just assume its available".

For another example, you know supply is almost always available after your factory finishes building the item, so you set this fence to Cumulative Manufacturing Lead Time.

Set this fence to make sure Promising doesn't consider short term supply for a long term order. For example, if you receive a long term order before you receive a short term order, this time fence will prevent Promising from pegging existing supply for the long term order.

If the requested date happens:

Before the time fence expires. Promising looks for on-hand supply that already exists before it looks at supply that you have to build or procure.
After the time fence expires. Promising looks for supply that you have to build or procure before it looks at on-hand supply that already exists.

You can specify the number of days that the time fence lasts. Assume the requested date is January 1. If you set the time fence to 10, then Promising will assume the time fence is in effect from January 1 to January 11.

You can also select from one of these lead times to specify how long the time fence lasts:

Total lead time
Cumulative manufacturing lead time
Cumulative total lead time

You use the ATP Rule Criteria area of the Manage ATP Rules page to set the time fence.