Sales order expedite best practice

[Former Member]

Hi All,

for a make to stock scenario, what is the best practice to do a sales order expedite? what do we do if the customer want something faster?

this is our current design so far:

MRP strat 40, forecast goes in, planned order created, firmed

sales order ATP checks stock, production orders, firmed planned orders

sales order created, runs sales order ATP check, it cannot deliver by the first date, so we take the suggested schedule lines. We check the "fixed date and quantity" box. the requirement is passed to MRP based on the schedule line dates and quantities. MRP is happy.

customer calls back and said they want it earlier, we uncheck the "fixed date and quantity" box, this is our "expedite". the sales order now passes the first date and quantity to MRP as requirement. pull ins are created for the firmed planned orders.

my question is: what do we do now? or is there some other way to work this process

We need a solution in core ECC 6.0 ehp 6, no plans to do APO gATP or the new IBP response module yet

thank you in advance and will be checking back often

[RahulHanda · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

There are many ways to handle such situations, but I could explain one which might help in your case:

this is our current design so far:

MRP strat 40, forecast goes in, planned order created, firmed

sales order ATP checks stock, production orders, firmed planned orders -- here you are checking only firmed supplies but not newly created planned order, is it (defined in OVZ9)? If yes how you confirm new sales orders if you don't have firmed supplies by any chance?

sales order created, runs sales order ATP check, it cannot deliver by the first date, so we take the suggested schedule lines. We check the "fixed date and quantity" box. the requirement is passed to MRP based on the schedule line dates and quantities. MRP is happy.

First we need to understand "fixed date and quantity" indicator. This for certian customer could be good for others it might not be. This basically fixes your date and quantity. As a result window to come closer to customer requested date is closed. Example customer asked for 15th June and system proposed 25th June, customer agreed and you put this indicator. Even further to add initial quantity for SO was 1000 and confirmed on 25th June could be only 900 just say for argument. So basically with this indicator we fixing date which is not as per customer request and of course quantity is less (or even could be same).

Now certain customers would agree to this situation on the other hand certain customers would not agree (so you can't put this indicator in SO in this case) and some would agree partially (as there is no option but still would like to come closer requested date).

In this case what you can do his create couple of Z-custom fields in line item on additional data B tab. In these fields you can capture confirmation given to customer. So as far as our example is concerned it would be 25th June (which in this case is equal to schedule line date) which would be set in this custom field and leave "fixed date and quantity" indicator open.

Now if you take a MRP run followed by ATP check (foreground or in background) it would come closer to customer requested dates or even go further away depending upon real situation at shop floor and your supplies. With this internally you can always see where your sales order is going while comparing the same with the commitment given to customer. If let's say supplies some how got pull-in and after ATP it proposed 17th June, you can still check with customer (those who didn't agree or partially agree).

For this process of course you need to add this custom field in couple of reports to have right visibility. Further you can put background ATP check on different priorities.

customer calls back and said they want it earlier, we uncheck the "fixed date and quantity" box, this is our "expedite". the sales order now passes the first date and quantity to MRP as requirement. pull ins are created for the firmed planned orders.

Basically with above approach you will not have to do this for all customers (as mentioned before; some customers might stick to 25th June in above example). So it totally depends how flexible you want to keep planning.

I hope this might help you in analyzing next steps for yourself.

Regards

Rahul

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the detailed answer.

1. yes the sales order ATP will return nothing if all the stock and firmed planned orders are taken,  we reply back to the customer after the planning team looks at it and firms it

2. I'm more interested in what is the best practice for pulling those firmed planned orders in. especially if our lead times for raw components are long and this pull in is asking you to place the planned order at a much earlier date, thus it will take the available stock and thus creating problems for other planned orders at the later dates (because lead time is long).

is there any way to tell the effects of moving in a firmed planned order would have on other firmed planned orders? (other than looking it holistically via MD06)

thanks

[RahulHanda · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

It's matter of an approach, how you want to use supplies to meet your demand. What I understood from above note is that planners are basically checking in the background the availability of material/components for this order and on the basis of the same they are confirming planned orders. This firming is taken into consideration while ATP and finally confirmed to customer.

In nutshell planner is confirming the sales order (by confirming planned order) which is conveyed by sales to customer.

Correct me if I am wrong, else so far so good.

Now firming itself means system will not change either dates or lot sizes during planning runs for planned orders, so system wise you are stuck with these dates no matter your supply situation is improving which in realty could come close to customer request date but is not the case because of firming.

As mentioned in my first response we introduced a custom field in SO line item, which would be commitment date to customer. Now if this is what is provided by planner which would be equal to date in firmed planned order then there is not need to firm the planned order. Coz it's commitment provide by planner the way he/she is providing in firmed planned order.

Since there would be no firming you can always see the fluctuations in planned order dates on the basis of component availability, finally in schedule line dates (by including un-firmed planned orders in your ATP).

If you keep on comparing customer request date, planner committed date & schedule line date, you will always have better visibility (through custom report or adding the same in standard reports).

Let me know if this is moving in right direction for yourself.

Regards

Rahul