It is important to remember that the recommended order quantity is calculated using the following 4 inputs:
Classification - stocked, non-stocked, obsolete
Policy - replenishment cycle and target fill rate
Forecast - computer generated or adjusted
Data - stock on hand, open purchase orders, customer orders, lead time, etc
Once data being imported into the app has been cleaned, appropriate classifications and inventory policies have been assigned and forecasts have been corrected where required, we can have peace of mind that the recommended order quantity will be calculated using correct inputs.
This article will cover the following:
Creating an order
Reviewing an order schedule
Viewing previously created order schedules
Creating an order
To create an order, navigate to the Orders screen in the app.
The “Order from suppliers” tab provides a listing of all external suppliers who have Recommended orders for today based on the specified parameters. The “Order from distribution centers” tab is used for transfer orders from internal distribution centers to stores/branches. The process to Order from Suppliers or to Order from Distribution Center works similarly.
You can sort the list by clicking on a column heading.
You can prioritize Orders (by sorting on that column) based on:
Items with unsatisfied Sales orders.
Suppliers with a higher urgency rating.
The biggest total order value or total units recommended.
Supplier Urgency - An indication of which orders to action first. The more icons (red warning triangles), the more urgent it is to order from that supplier. The rating takes into consideration the ratio of Stocked out, Potential stock outs and OK items from that supplier relative to other suppliers. The actual number of critical items may differ from day to day from supplier to supplier, but the indication of the relative urgency of each supplier compared with other suppliers will remain consistent.
To create a new order, select the required location for which you want to generate an order.
Select whether to order for only Stocked, Non-stocked or All items.
Click on the Filter button to filter on more than a single value and use multiple fields simultaneously.
Should you have the Projected orders configuration setting enabled, you can select to display suppliers with items that need ordering within their default look forward days or those with Orders any time in the next 12 months.
Should you have the Projected orders configuration setting enabled, you can specify the Look fwd days value for the order.
The Look fwd days (XXXX) parameter specifies how far into the future you wish to have the App look for Orders and bring them forward to today. This is useful for dealing with supplier shut downs or Chinese New Year.
Select the supplier for which you wish to generate recommended orders by clicking the radio button next to the Supplier code.
Click on the “Create order” button.
An order schedule has now been successfully created and will open automatically.
Reviewing an order schedule
Both creating a new order and viewing saved recommended orders, takes you to the Order schedule.
The Order schedule is the list of items from the selected supplier that have an order recommendation today based on their stock level, forecasts, inventory policies, and look forward days.
Pertinent information is displayed to enable you to quickly evaluate the recommended quantity.
Each of these headings are clickable, which will allow you to sort by that particular heading in ascending or descending order.
Click on the ellipses (...) to view information on who created the order, for which site, from which supplier and the Look forward days value that was used.
Click on the “+” button on an order line to expand additional information on the Product code, Policy and Demand columns or move the order line to another Order schedule.
By expanding additional information on an order line (“+” button), you’ll be able to view more detailed information about the Policy parameters.
Policy information includes:
Lead time (green) - This is the time between when an item is ordered from the supplier (or warehouse), until it is received and is available for consumption. Click on the information tip (i) next to the Lead time value to see where it is sourced from.
Replenishment cycle (purple) - The Replenishment cycle indicates how much inventory of this item you want to purchase at a time.
Safety stock (yellow) - This is the minimum level your inventory should ever reach in an ideal world. It acts as a buffer of additional stock to protect an item from stocking out due to late supplier deliveries or under-forecasting.
Stock on hand (O/H) (plum) - This indicates how much stock you have on hand.
On order (O/O) (red) - The total units on order from suppliers.
Overdue demand (O/D) - The number of units of overdue orders from customers or internal transfers that you have not yet fulfilled.
Target fill - This indicates the level of product availability that we are targeting for this item.
Achieved fill rate - The actual fill rate achieved over the last 30 days. The higher the fill rate, the better you are able to serve your customers.
By expanding additional information on an order line (“+” button), you’ll be able to view more detailed information about the Demand information used in the order calculation.
Demand information includes:
Avg sales - The average monthly sales over the last 12 months. If the item is younger than 12 months, it will be the average of its lifetime.
Month-to-date (MTD) sales - The amount of sales of this item in this location from the beginning of the month. Clicking this indicator will give you a quick view of how actual sales are doing compared to forecasted sales for this month. This is compared to how far we are through the current month.
Avg FC - The average monthly forecasted sales over the next 12 months.
Total SO - This indicates the total value of open Sales orders.
Hits - This indicates the number of months that the item sold in during the last 12-13 months. If an item sold zero units in the month, it means that it had no hits that month. A hit is registered for each sale in a month regardless of the number of units sold.
Age - This indicates the months for which the App shows data for this item. This includes the current month. You can use this to identify new items, which may need more manual forecasting.
Other FC - This indicates the total value of other forecasts that this item has. This may include Distribution center (DC) forecasts, Bill of material forecasts or both.
The Recommended order quantity, item Cost and Lead time can be amended. The amended values will only be relevant for the order line in question.
Remember: The Recommended order quantity was calculated using the classification, inventory policies, forecasts and data. If you find you need to amend the recommended order quantity because it is incorrect, then you’ll likely need to amend it every time you review an order schedule unless you correct it at the source. That is, correct the input causing the recommended order quantity to be incorrect, whether it be the data, forecast, classification or inventory policies.
Clicking in the “i” next to the Recommended order quantity will display a projection of order quantities for the next 12 months.
Combining very small projected quantities into the same order may be a good reason to amend the Recommended order quantity.
View the line count and the column totals at the bottom of the Order schedule as well as any amendments that were made to these values.
Click on the “Summary” button for a comparison of what the App recommended, the amendments made and the difference.
The Summary view also provides a breakdown of the comparisons by ABC, HML, and Groups.
Click on the “Add items to this order” button to add items without a recommended order quantity today to the Order schedule.
Clicking the button brings up these choices:
Select from all items to add; which displays all items supplied by this supplier.
Select from top-up items to add; which displays all items that do not have an order recommendation today but are below their Order up to (max) level.
Add a specific item; where you can type in the product code of the item you wish to add.
Click on the “Download” button to download the information required to create this order in your ERP system.
Depending on your App configuration, clicking this button may:
download this Order schedule to a CSV file on your computer where you can upload it to your ERP system;
automatically upload this Order schedule to your ERP system; or
both.
Click on the “Archive” button to remove this order from the Saved recommended orders view.
Viewing previously created order schedules
To view previously created Orders that were saved, click on the “Saved Orders” button on the Orders screen.
This is useful if you wish to continue reviewing an order which has not been downloaded.
The Saved orders screen displays recommended orders that have been created and/or downloaded but not yet archived.
You can filter to view Supplier or Distribution center orders; created by you or created by anyone in your company, that have been downloaded, not downloaded or both.
You can reload the data based on your filter selection by clicking the “Load” button.
The information displayed includes:
Location - The warehouse / location the order is for.
Source - Who it has been ordered from.
Group - The group that was specified when creating the order.
Created by - Who created the order schedule
Created on - When the order schedule was created.
Order value - The total value of the order schedule.
Purchase currency value - The currency of the Order value.
D - Whether the order has been downloaded or not.
Selecting any of these Saved order schedules will reopen it, displaying the individual item’s order recommendations.
Note: If you do not complete working on an order schedule the day you create it, and only get back to it a day or two later, it is preferable to regenerate the order schedule for that location and supplier. The reasons are as follows:
The order schedule is a snapshot of what was required to be ordered from that supplier at that point in time. This snapshot does not get updated with daily information.
As up to date information is synced daily, the information available now will include any sales that have occurred since the order schedule was generated, the current stock on hand figure and any committed or allocated stock, for example - and may result in a different order recommendation.
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