Written by Gail Haggerty and Mark Whiteacre

Introduction

Policy overrides, also referred to as overrides, can help to tailor the app to meet your company’s business requirements. They can be used to override broader policy and classification settings, apply lead times or constrain safety stock for specific subsets of products.

For example, if you order from an overseas supplier infrequently to meet economic ordering constraints such as filling a container, you could create a rule to set a longer replenishment cycle for that supplier. On the other hand, if you need to order more frequently from another supplier due to short shelf-life constraints, a rule to set a shorter replenishment cycle may help.

Accessing policy overrides

Keep in mind that Policy Overrides are not available to Restricted users.

Assuming you have the necessary access, you can find this by clicking on Settings (found towards the bottom left of the screen) and selecting the Policy overrides option.

Here you will see a list of the current rules including their descriptions, the values they set and the filters that define which items are affected:

You can click on the rule name to edit or delete an existing rule.

Creating a new rule

Click on New rule at the bottom of the page.

For each rule, you will need to specify the name, sequence number, overrides and filters.

When describing the rule, choose words that will help other users understand the reasoning for the rule and/or what it is intended to achieve.

An optional start and/or end date can be applied to the override. Start and end dates are a convenience feature and safety mechanism that allow you to specify the effectivity period for a rule so that you don't have to remember to enable and disable them in the future.

Specify a sequence number to set the sequence of this rule in relation to other rules. If there are multiple conflicting rules that apply to the same product, the rule with the highest sequence number will be applied i.e. sequence number 2 will override sequence number 1.

In the Overrides to apply section, enter the values that you want to apply. You can use one, many or all of the available fields. In our example, we are setting a long lead time to deal with a temporary issue at one of our suppliers.

The following values are available for override in the Policy override screen:

Stocking indicator - Classifies how an item is managed in inventory (e.g., stocked, non-stocked, obsolete). This determines if and how it's replenished.
Replenishment cycle days (RC) - An item’s Replenishment cycle is defined as the desired time-based plan for which received stock should cover future demand, which in turn specifies the frequency of replenishment.
Target fill rate - The desired percentage of days you wish to have stock available. This differs from the fulfillment rate in that if you have 15 days without stock, but no customer orders are placed during those 15 days, your fulfillment rate is still 100%. However, your achieved fill rate is 50%.
Lead time days (LT) - The time between placing an order for an item from the supplier (or DC) and that item being available for sale or use.
Minimum safety stock days - The minimum level of safety stock, expressed in days of demand, held to protect against stockouts due to unexpected demand or delays.
Maximum safety stock days - The maximum level of safety stock, expressed in days of demand, allowed to avoid excessive inventory holding costs.
NOTE: If you set a maximum safety stock days value, you should also set a minimum safety stock days value.
Source of supply - Where the item is sourced from (e.g., a specific supplier, DC).
NOTE: If you select an external supplier, this will be the default supplier as per the vendor code in the stock by location data file.
Minimum order quantity (MOQ) - The smallest amount of an item you can order from a supplier. Selecting "No change" will use the MOQ from the data file. Alternatively, you may also set it to the order multiple in the data file, or 1.
Order multiple (OM) - The unit quantity in which an item must be ordered (e.g., if the OM is 12, you must order in multiples of 12, like 12, 24, 36, etc.). Selecting "No change" will use the OM from the data file. Alternatively, you may also set it to 1.

Use the Filters section to define which products should be affected by the rule.

Lastly, click Create at the bottom of the page to save the new rule.

You can apply the current set of rules by clicking on Apply overrides.

Before placing orders affected by new or updated rules, be sure to reprocess your data (System > Data Refresh > Reprocess Data) or wait for the overnight refresh. This will apply the rules to BOM and DC demand and ensure any batch customizations are taken into account.

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