Group Orders to Save Costs

Group planned orders into purchase orders to build loads that maximize weight and volume limits and reduce the number of deliveries in a given period. You can ungroup the orders if you have changes to the grouping.

You can group orders that have different items into a single group. However, ensure that the supplier is the same and the location of the supplier is also the same. After grouping, the orders continue to appear as separate orders but belong to the same group. When you release the plan, the grouped orders become a single purchase order.

Group a Set of Orders Using the Group Order Action

Here’s how you group the planned orders:

In the Buyer Planning work area, Overview tab, click on a status bar of the planned order bar chart.
You see the Order Lines view on the Buyer Planning tab.
Select an order line.
You see the Order Details view on the Buyer Planning tab. The order details are based on the supplier-site-location combination.
Select orders you want to group and click Group Orders.
You see the Group Orders panel drawer.
On the panel drawer, enter a Group Name.
Change the group dock date if needed.
Click Save.
The orders that are grouped show the same group name.

Group the Orders Using Inline Edit

To group your planned orders using inline edit:

In the Buyer Planning work area, Overview tab, click on a status bar of the planned order bar chart.
You see the Order Lines view on the Buyer Planning tab.
Select an order line.
You see the Order Details view on the Buyer Planning tab. The order details are based on the supplier-site-location combination.
On the Order Details view of the Buyer Planning tab, double-click on the Group Name field for an order.
The field becomes editable.
Enter a group name. If there's a name already in the field, you can change it.
Click the tick mark.
Your changes are saved.

Remove Grouping on Orders

Use the Unmark for Release action to remove grouping on orders. Here’s how you do it:

Select the orders you want to ungroup.
From More Actions, select Unmark for Release.
The orders are ungrouped and the statuses of the orders change to Ready for Release.

You can also use the Unmark for Release action to:

Remove consolidation of orders.
Remove orders from the Marked for Release status back to the Ready for Release status.

View Group Summaries

In the Group Summary view, you can see how many planned orders are grouped and how many aren’t. Use this information to determine if any further grouping or readjustment is needed to optimize the weight and volume of loads.

In the Buyer Planning work area, Overview tab, click on a status bar of the planned order bar chart.
You see the Order Lines view on the Buyer Planning tab.
Select an order line.
You see the Order Details view on the Buyer Planning tab. The order details are based on the supplier-site-location combination.
On the Order Details view of the Buyer Planning tab, click More Actions, and select Show Group Summaries.

On the Group Summaries view, you see:

Field	Description
Ungrouped orders: Number of Planned Orders	Shows the number of planned orders that aren’t grouped yet.
Group: Number of Planned Orders	Shows the number of orders each group has.
Total Price Savings	You get an understanding of total cost that you saved after consolidating orders.
Total Weight	Shows the total weight of the items in a group order.
Total Volume	Shows the total volume of load containing a group order. Total weight and volume help you save on delivery costs and number of deliveries. You can regroup to see that the container in which the items are delivered is optimally utilized so that you can avoid multiple deliveries.