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Customer Order - Availability Check & Capability Check

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We are currently working on some solutions to improve our dates for our customers. One gap we currently have within IFS is that ATP (Available to Promise) and CTP (Capability check or Capable to Promise) do not include open supply, unless the Wanted Date is within the Open Supply window. 

Example where Supply is not seen:

  • Customer Order Wanted Delivery Date - 5/10/21
  • Shop Order Due Date 5/12
  • ATP runs and shows you can only fulfill so much of the order (based on qty on hand and selling qty). Thus the user runs CTP moves the promise date on the customer order to the full part lead time (30 days) even though the supply is coming in on the 12th. 

 

Example where Supply is seen:

  • Customer Order Wanted Delivery Date - 5/10/21
  • Shop Order Due Date 5/8
  • ATP or CTP see the supply and the date properly plans the customer order. 

With the supply not being seen on the first one example, we get an extended lead time that is no necessary. Do any other customers run into this issue? If so, have you come up with any solutions? 

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Best answer by Vimukthi Mahakumbura 7 May 2021, 07:37

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Vimukthi Mahakumbura
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We are currently working on some solutions to improve our dates for our customers. One gap we currently have within IFS is that ATP (Available to Promise) and CTP (Capability check or Capable to Promise) do not include open supply, unless the Wanted Date is within the Open Supply window. 

Example where Supply is not seen:

  • Customer Order Wanted Delivery Date - 5/10/21
  • Shop Order Due Date 5/12
  • ATP runs and shows you can only fulfill so much of the order (based on qty on hand and selling qty). Thus the user runs CTP moves the promise date on the customer order to the full part lead time (30 days) even though the supply is coming in on the 12th. 

 

Example where Supply is seen:

  • Customer Order Wanted Delivery Date - 5/10/21
  • Shop Order Due Date 5/8
  • ATP or CTP see the supply and the date properly plans the customer order. 

With the supply not being seen on the first one example, we get an extended lead time that is no necessary. Do any other customers run into this issue? If so, have you come up with any solutions? 

Hi @Ngerst ,

According to my understanding, this is the standard behavior of the current system. I agree this is troublesome, so it might be the reason why documentation on Capability check identifies this as a limitation.

Check:  http://docweb.corpnet.ifsworld.com/ifsdoc/Apps10/Documentation/en/default.htm?openpage=http://docweb.corpnet.ifsworld.com/ifsdoc/Apps10/Documentation/en/Sales/AboutCapabilityCheck.htm

I also notice that this has been reported to RnD before and let me quote some of the reasons behind this and some workarounds you can use:

“The existing logic cannot go and look for the late Supplies and adjust the Dates, then the Process will be a never ending Process.”

“You could change the due date in customer order line bit future and run the capability check.
Lets say we have supplies in next week, so I put a new date in the coming week and run Capability Check, that could help to net such supplies. So running the Capability Check for several days and decide on an optimal due date would be a workaround.”

“Other potion is to exclude those parts with long lead time from the capability Check by setting the "Promised Plan" field in the Product Structure to "Not Promised"  and manually plan them.”

Thank you, let me know your idea on this. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/vimukthi-mahakumbura-9b2296aa/
Vimukthi Mahakumbura
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In case you have no access to above URL, here is the documentation attached. :)

 

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/vimukthi-mahakumbura-9b2296aa/
Rasika Lakmal
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The availability check performs against the tab that is named Availability Check in the IPAP window. And there, you can see that there supplies within the Leadtime or beyond the Leadtime.

Functionality is that the availability check only uses the Expected Leadtime if there are no supplies within the leadtime. 

Quoted here are the F1 help documentation for your ease of reference.

Availability Check

The availability check analyses the development of the available balance within the expected lead time of the part. This means that the system analyses if all demands can be satisfied on the promised dates even after a change occurs. A change can be an order entry, an issue of some sort, or the reservation of parts. Only changes within the part's lead time are considered, as the availability of the part beyond the lead time is considered to be under control (unlimited).

Calculation

The availability analysis makes sure that the plannable quantity does not become negative within the part's expected lead time. It calculates how much is plannable at a specific time without creating shortages for any other order, based on the available inventory as well as all the planned supplies and demands.

  • It starts by calculating the available quantity in stock today: On-hand balance today - reserved parts - parts past expiration date - not nettable parts = available inventory quantity today.
  • Then, it calculates the projected available quantity on time T: Available Inventory Qty Today + Planned supply to Time T - Planned demand to Time T - Backorder Qty  = Projected Available Balance on Time T.
  • Finally the quantity plannable is calculated as: The LEAST of : Projected Available Quantity on Time T AND  Plannable Qty on Time T+1 = Plannable Qty on Time T.

Example of Availability Analysis

For a part with a lead time of seven days and an available balance of 100 pieces, the plannable quantity is:

Date

In

Out

Projected Avail Quantity

Plannable Quantity

200X-02-07

 

90

10 (100 - 90)

10 (least of 410, 10)

200X-02-08

1000

 

1010 (10 + 1000)

410 (least of 410, 1010)

200X-02-09

 

500

510 (1010 - 500)

410 (least of 410, 510)

200X-02-10

 

100

410 (510 - 100)

410 (least of 660, 410)

200X-02-11

500

 

910 (410 + 500)

660 (least of 660, 910)

200X-02-12

 

200

710 (910 - 200)

660 (least of 660, 710)

200X-02-13

 

50

660 (710 - 50)

660 (least of 1660, 660)

200X-02-14

1000

 

1660 (660 + 1000)

1660 (least of 99999999, 1660)

200X-02-15

 

1500

160 (1660 - 1500)

99999999

Plannable quantity shows the uncommitted portion of the quantity in stock and the planned production, with the lead time taken into consideration. You can calculate the plannable quantity by taking the least of the previous plannable quantity and the available quantity from the bottom up. This gives you the quantity that can be planned for orders without causing other orders to be delivered late.

This topic is divided in 3 sections: when entering customer order lines and sourcing lines, when automatic reserving customer order lines and when releasing and reserving shop orders.

The Availability Check at Customer Order Entry and Customer Order Sourcing

The availability check at customer order entry is a planned delivery date estimation based upon an organization's material constraints. It is an order-promising calculation that verifies and/or suggests a delivery date by analyzing material. It considers the available material for single-level product structures.

The availability check not only performs availability analysis but also calculates the earliest possible delivery date for orders that cannot be delivered on the date requested by the customer. This way, the chances of fulfilling the delivery date as planned increase significantly.

The following parameter controls how the availability check at customer order entry/sourcing function works;
Select the Availability Check check box in the Inventory Part/Misc Info window, for the appropriate site, you specify whether or not the part should be subject to availability check at customer order entry/sourcing. The system will consider the availability when a future demand arises if the part is availability-checked at order registration. It will also review if it is possible to meet the desired date without delaying any other orders.

The availability check is primarily designed for make-to-stock and distribution operations.

Continuing with the example before:

A customer order with a due date of February 9 and a quantity of 600 pieces is registered for the part. The availability check shows that the plannable quantity on this date is only 410 pieces, so that not all of the requested amount can be issued on the desired day. Instead, the availability check goes forward in time and stops at February 11, which is the first day when the plannable quantity is greater than 600 pieces.

The availability check proposes to the user that 600 pieces of the parts can be delivered on February 11. The plannable quantity, including the new order, would be as shown below. If you choose to update the quantity or the date of the existing order line, a new availability check is run.

Date

In

Out

Projected Avail Quantity

Plannable Quantity

200X-02-07

 

90

10 (100 - 90)

10 (least of 410, 10)

200X-02-08

1000

 

1010 (10 + 1000)

60 (least of 60, 1010)

200X-02-09

 

500

510 (1010 - 500)

60 (least of 60, 510)

200X-02-10

 

100

410 (510 - 100)

60 (least of 60, 410)

200X-02-11

500

600

310 (410 + 500 - 600)

60 (least of 60, 310)

200X-02-12

 

200

110 (310 - 200)

60 (least of 60, 110)

200X-02-13

 

50

60 (110 - 50)

60 (least of 1060, 60)

200X-02-14

1000

 

1060 (60 + 1000)

1060 (least of 999999, 1060)

200X-02-15

 

1500

-440 (1060 - 1500)

99999999999

The Availability Check at Customer Order Automatic Reservation

IFS Supply Chain comprises flexible reservation management processes. These can vary depending on the requirements for delivery assurance for different parts. Availability check is a fundamental aspect of reservation handling in IFS Supply Chain.

The availability check ensures that when automatically reserving parts, the available balance does not become negative. If so, the system will warn you and the reservation job will not succeed. In this situation the planner does not want the system to automatically make reservations but chooses instead to make the reservations manually.

The following parameter controls whether the availability check at customer order automatic reservations shall be run or not: Availability Check at CO Reserve, in the Inventory Part/Misc Info window.

If the availability check is not passed, the reservation is not executed and the background job gets in status Warning. The customer order can be monitored in the Handle Customer Order Shortages window.

Note: It is strongly recommended to not use availability check for condition code handled parts, since the result from the availability check may be misleading.
 

The Availability Check at Shop Order Release and Reservation

Again the availability check ensures that when releasing and automatically reserving parts, the available balance does not become negative. If so, the system will warn you and the reservation job will not succeed.

The following parameters control how the availability check function works in shop order:

  • Availability Check, in the Inventory Part/Misc Info window.
  • Auto avail check of shop order in System Parameters. This is the default value that will be suggested when releasing and reserving shop orders. Using this, you can decide at the release and reserve moment to perform an availability check of the component parts which inventory parts records are marked for availability check.

If the availability analysis returns a negative plannable quantity at shop order release, the shop order is released but you get a planning alert of type Low, which can be seen in the Planning Alerts - Shop Order window.

At shop order reservation of material, if the availability analysis returns a negative plannable quantity, the material is not reserved and you receive a warning message informing about the availability problem.

The Availability Check for Orders in Planned State

The availability check can also be performed for one or more shop orders which are in Planned state. This check has to be initiated manually as the automatic availability check does not consider orders in Planned state.

All components of the selected shop orders will be included, even if they do not have the Availability Check check box selected.

Although the check will use the Date Required of individual shop order components by default, it is also possible for you to pick another plan date instead.

Rasika Lakmal
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Thank you for the information. This issue hinders us from giving customers great dates, it would be helpful if IFS R&D would make a change to see Open Supply a bit better. Thank you again for all the help and context to this. 

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Does any know if you your Wanted Delivery Date it say 6/10, and you run CTP and have a Shop Order for the Sub (not the FG Sales Part) coming in on 6/5….will Capability Check see this? Or does it only see the top level supply? 

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Hi Ngerst,

We experience the same problem with the CTP solution. We have also got the answer from IFS that it works as supposed to. However, our customers do not accept that we give them unreasonably long lead times. IFS have told us that there are another customer that has made an customization that uses iteration to find the best possible delivery date. That solution seems to work, but it will take a lot of time to adapt to our solution and we are also concerned that it will affect the system performance.

 

According to IFS, a change of the standard CTP functionality is in the future plan, but not in the near future, probably ~3 years from now.

 

If you find any good work around to the problem, I would be happy to take part of it! We are struggling to find a way to promise the best possible lead time for larger customer orders.

 

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Have you used the customization you referenced below? If so, does it seem to help and is it cumbersome for the user to utilize? 

Hi Ngerst,

We experience the same problem with the CTP solution. We have also got the answer from IFS that it works as supposed to. However, our customers do not accept that we give them unreasonably long lead times. IFS have told us that there are another customer that has made an customization that uses iteration to find the best possible delivery date. That solution seems to work, but it will take a lot of time to adapt to our solution and we are also concerned that it will affect the system performance.

 

According to IFS, a change of the standard CTP functionality is in the future plan, but not in the near future, probably ~3 years from now.

 

If you find any good work around to the problem, I would be happy to take part of it! We are struggling to find a way to promise the best possible lead time for larger customer orders.

 

 

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Hi Ngerst,

Sorry for delay in reply. no we have not used the solution yet. It will take some time to develop to fit our needs. We have read the specification and done some small tests in test environment, but due to differences in business needs it did not work properly as-is, it need to be modified.

 

Have you done any progress on your side?

 

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We have not made much progress we are looking at doing a custom event that may help some of the limitations of Wanted Delivery Date and CTP, but we aren’t sure it will work yet. Truly frustrating that IFS just doesn’t allow CTP to be run automatically on any line. ATP could just be removed, seems odd the ERP has two levels to determine availability. 

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No at this time we are still working through somethings but our thoughts are as followed:

  1. Allow the wanted delivery date to be the date we chose either today or based on setup
  2. Allow Available to Promise to run automatically
  3. If ATP pushes the date, create custom event to move the Wanted Delivery Date to that ATP pushed date (still working on what this looks like with multiple customer order lines)
  4. Allow user to run CTP, this will allow the user to have a new wanted delivery date that CTP will look for open supply within

This still doesn’t allow us to run it automatically for our items. It’s truly frustrating to our end users as we have a high-volume of customer orders per day. Having to run CTP manually hinders the ability of our staff to do their job 100%. 

N
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Hi Ngerst,

We experience the same problem with the CTP solution. We have also got the answer from IFS that it works as supposed to. However, our customers do not accept that we give them unreasonably long lead times. IFS have told us that there are another customer that has made an customization that uses iteration to find the best possible delivery date. That solution seems to work, but it will take a lot of time to adapt to our solution and we are also concerned that it will affect the system performance.

 

According to IFS, a change of the standard CTP functionality is in the future plan, but not in the near future, probably ~3 years from now.

 

If you find any good work around to the problem, I would be happy to take part of it! We are struggling to find a way to promise the best possible lead time for larger customer orders.

 

 

 

Have you used this yet? Or is there a way to see it? 

 

N
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When running Capability Check on Customer Order Line, we have been told if the supply for the bill structure is within the wanted delivery date, Capability Check will see this supply. However, it only seems to work at the top level of the structure, as it does not see supply from a sub (manufactured component) or a raw (purchased part). Is this the way Capability Check works?

I wanted to validate this with some other customers as this is currently our experience. That a shop order for a sub (manufactured component) is ignored by Capability Check. 

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