1. Using Order Promising
  2. Keep Global Order Promising and Inventory Management Synchronized

Keep Global Order Promising and Inventory Management Synchronized

Keep the values that you see for item availability in Oracle Global Order Promising and on-hand availability in Oracle Inventory Management synchronized.

You might encounter a wide range of problems when item availability and on-hand availability aren't synchronized in a timely way.

  • You have a lot of open, scheduled sales orders that are in manual reservation status and they consume all of the supply that Promising is aware of. You unschedule these orders but Promising isn't aware that it can now use that supply to reserve the item for new sales orders. This might happen because you collected data before you unscheduled the orders.
  • You see that there's plenty of supply in on-hand availability, but Promising splits the fulfillment line anyway when you don't expect it too. If Promising doesn't know what's currently on-hand in inventory, and can't fulfill the entire line, it might split the line according to the quantity it can promise and put the rest on backlog.
  • Promising uses supply on a first-in, first-out basis. Assume you place order x on Monday with a requested date that happens on Wednesday. Promising will consume all the supply it needs for x on Monday. You then create order y on Tuesday with a requested date of today, but there's no supply left even though you can see that there's still quantity in inventory. That's because the supply for x is reserved and hasn't shipped, but you haven't collected data.

Example

Promising promises each sales order according to the details that it gets from various sources, including Inventory. Promising then sends fulfillment dates to Oracle Order Management. The supply can include supply that's currently on-hand in inventory and supply that Promising gets from purchase orders, work orders, and transfer orders.

For example, Inventory Management might currently have 0 on-hand, but you expect to receive 5 purchase orders today, each with a quantity of 20. The On-Hand Availability attribute in Inventory Management has a quantity of 0, but the Item Availability attribute in Promising has a quantity of 100.

Assume Promising calculates supply one time each day, and you receive 5 purchase orders every day for the next 5 days, each with a quantity of 20:

Day Item Availability On-Hand Availability
1 20 0
2 40 0
3 60 0
4 80 0
5 100 0

Promising will use future supply. It will reduce available-to-promise supply when it schedules and promises each sales order, but Inventory Management sees these changes only after it reserves and schedules the order. Assume:

  • You have a quantity of 100 in on-hand inventory on Monday.
  • On Tuesday you receive a purchase order with a quantity of 20.
  • You create sales order x on Wednesday with a quantity of 90.
  • You create sales order y on Thursday with a quantity of 20.
  • Promising schedules order y to arrive on time.
  • Promising consumes 90 units of supply on Wednesday and 20 more units on Thursday.
  • You can see that on hand availability in Inventory Management is 100 units, but Promising returns only 10 units (100 minus 90).

Use the Correct Web Service and Collect Data

Promising uses different web services to determine item availability.

Web Service What it Includes
Quick Availability Supply that's currently available at one or more organizations, according to your sourcing rules.
Check Availability

Supply that's potentially available at one or more organizations. It includes quantities that it can get through transferring supply from another source, making supply, or buying it.

This value is for fulfilling one sales order.

Assume your sales order has a quantity of 120. You have a quantity of 10 on-hand, 100 is available through transfer from another organization, and 10 is available through a purchase order. Inventory will display a quantity of 10 for Item Availability. If you use:

  • Quick Availability. Promising includes a quantity of 20 and can't fulfill the sales order on time.
  • Check Availability. Promising includes a quantity of 120 (10 on-hand plus 100 through transfer plus another 10 through purchase), and can schedule the fulfilled quantity of 120 today.

To avoid this problem, you must periodically collect data so the quantities that Promising sees are synchronized with the quantities that Inventory Management sees. For details, see Collect Data for Global Order Promising.

Cancel a Sales Order

Assume you schedule a sales order that has a quantity of 20 on day 4, which reduces item availability to 60. You cancel the order later that day in Order Management, and now item availability is back to 80. Promising can see that this quantity is no longer reserved and increases its available-to-promise supply, but Inventory Management isn't aware of the return so on-hand availability still shows only 60.

To avoid this problem, periodically collect data so the quantities that Promising sees are synchronized with the quantities that Inventory Management sees.

Order Hasn't Shipped

Assume Inventory Management and Promising each have a quantity of 100 of the AS54888 desktop computer. Promising schedules an order line that has a quantity of 10 but the order status hasn't yet achieved Shipped status. Promising reduces its available-to-promise supply to 90 (100 minus 10), but Inventory Management sees the change only after the line achieves Shipped status, so on-hand availability continues to show 100.

To avoid this problem, collect order data when you ship the order. The next time you start the Promising server, Promising will see that the order is done.

If you set up your available-to-promise rule for past-due supply and past-due demand days so that the unshipped orders fall within the dates that Promising uses to promise the item, then Promising might consider the supply as available.

Assume you set the days for past due demand to 5, Promising schedules the order on day minus 3, fulfillment is processing the sales order and it has a quantity of 10 but hasn't shipped it, then Promising will consider the demand as new demand and allocate supply for the order again.

Back-to-Back Orders

Assume you have some available-to-promise supply but no on-hand supply in inventory.
  • Promising sends a pegging type of ATP to Supply Chain Orchestration so orchestration can create supply.
  • Promising sends an available-to-promise recommendation to Orchestration, Orchestration creates a reservation in Inventory Management, but the reservation fails because there isn't any on-hand supply in inventory.
  • Orchestration doesn't know whether the available-to-promise supply comes from on-hand inventory or from future supply. You must wait until on-hand supply is available, then manually resolve the failed reservation.
Assume you submit a sales order on day 1 with a request date of day 30 for a quantity of 10 for the AS54888 item.
  • Promising finds out that there's supply coming into the shipping warehouse on day 28 with a quantity of 20 through a purchase order.
  • Promising sends an available-to-promise supply recommendation to Orchestration to fulfill the order, but there isn't any on-hand supply in inventory today, which is day 1.

  • Orchestration creates the supply order and sends a reservation request but the request fails because there isn't any on-hand supply.

  • You use the Review Supply Availability action to determine the supply that's available for the sales order, but this action has only a snapshot of supply that exists at a given point in time. It doesn't have any supply details from Inventory Management.

Use the Review Supply Availability action to view the latest availability data. See Overview of Managing Demand.

Set up Your Material Status and Subinventory

Promising only considers subinventories that are available to promise. Here's how you can make sure a subinventory is available to promise.

  1. Manage the material status.
    • Go to the Setup and Maintenance work area, then go to the task:
      • Offering: Manufacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management
      • Functional Area: Inventory Management
      • Task: Manage Material Statuses
    • On the Manage Material Statuses page, click the row that has your status, then click Actions > Edit.

      If you already assigned the status to inventory, then you can't edit the status. You must remove that assignment then edit the status, or create a new status.

    • In the dialog that displays, set the values.
      Attribute Value

      Allow Reservations

      Include in ATP

      Nettable

      Enabled

      Enabling these attributes makes sure that Promising and Inventory Management will have the same on-hand quantity for your item.

      This set up also makes sure that Promising won't reduce the quantity that's available to reserve for an item in inventory when you don't enable Allow Reservations for a locator.
      • Click OK > Save and Close.
  2. Assign the status to the subinventory.
    • Go to the task.
      • Offering: Manufacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management
      • Functional Area: Inventory Management
      • Task: Manage Subinventories and Locators
    • On the Manage Subinventories page, select the row that has your subinventory, then click Actions > Edit.
    • Set the Material Status attribute to the status that you created in step 1.

Collect Entities That Promising Needs to Plan for Fulfillment

Make sure you collect the entities that Promising needs to accurately plan fulfillment for your item. For example, here are some of the entities that you might need to collect, depending on your needs.

Reference Entities Supply Planning Data
  • Approved Supplier List
  • Calendars
  • Item Subinventories
  • Items
  • Subinventories
  • Suppliers
  • On Hand
  • Purchase Orders and Requisitions
  • Reservations
  • Sales Orders
  • Transfer Orders

For details, see Collect Planning Data for Order Management.

Examine Your ATP Rules

Examine the ATP rule that you've set up for the organization that fulfills the item.

  • Make sure you set the Promising Mode attribute on the rule to Supply Chain Availability Search. Promising determines availability only if you use this mode.
  • Make sure you include all possible sources when you set up your sourcing rule. Promising considers all sources that you specify, and adds up their supplies when it determines availability.
  • Enable the Search Components and Resources option on your available-to-promise rule. Promising will consider each manufacturing component and resource when it determines availability.
  • Don't set the Past-Due Demand Considered in Days attribute and the Past-Due Supply Considered in Days attribute on your available-to-promise rule to a high value. Keep these values below 30. Using a high value might affect performance. Consider using the average number of days it takes your implementation to fulfill a sales order.

For details, see Set Up Promising Rules and Sourcing Rules for Order Management and Create Promising Rules for Your Configuration Model.

Determine the Supply That's Actually Available to Promise

Use the Supplies and Demands table.
  • Go to the Plan Inputs work area, click Open, then search for and open Supplies and Demands.
  • On the Supplies and Demands page, query for your item and the order type, then examine the quantity in the search results. It displays the quantity that Promising collected.

Use actions.

Action Description
Review Supply Availability Examine the supply that's available for you item, such as the quantity at the start of the day, the amount consumed, how much is still available, and so on.
Item Availability Examine the quantity that's on the shelf, quantity that's already allocated to sales orders, and the quantity that's available to promise. You access it in the same way that you access Review Supply Availability.

For details, see See What Supply is Available and Allocated.