Supplier Self-service (B2B)

The supplier self-service portal for procurement is a platform for supplier collaboration for product centric businesses. This solution supports the processes to view and follow up purchase orders, confirm purchase orders (with or without changes), analyze estimated future demands, handle Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), view consignment stock and acknowledge consumption, handle request for order and agreement quotations, register and upload of supplier catalogs, review and maintain company information and view subcontracted manufacturing operations.

View Open Orders

Open orders provide important information for the suppliers to follow up on on-going orders. Open orders are defined as orders that are not fully received. It is possible to view more details about a whole order or a specific line by navigating to detail levels as well.

Most importantly, B2B suppliers have the possibility to view the orders that need confirmation. This helps B2B suppliers to act on confirmation of such orders timely. B2B suppliers have the possibility of requesting changes for orders during confirmation. Upon requesting such change, message will be created in Incoming Purchase Order Confirmation page. The orders with pending for approval will be indicated as pending orders. Additionally, if there exist purchase order change orders for some purchase orders, they will also be indicated as pending orders. B2B suppliers can observe these types of pending orders as well.

View of late order lines is another important aspect which brings B2B supplier’s attention. An order line with Planned Arrival Date in the past will be defined as a late order line. This helps B2B suppliers to take immediate actions on late orders to fulfill demands without any further delay.

If purchase order lines contain configurable parts, it is possible to view details of configurations of such parts.

If there exist component parts connected to purchase order lines, it is possible to view the details of components.

It is also possible to view document text connected to the Purchase Order, the Supplier, the Purchase Order Line or Supplier for Purchase Part, with output type that is connected to document number 6, Purchase Order.

Note:

• Parts and no-numbered parts are visible in the same list.
• External service orders are excluded from these views.
• Orders containing rental parts are excluded from these views.

Confirm B2B Purchase

When confirming purchase orders, B2B suppliers have the possibility to confirm without changes or confirm with changes.

When confirming an open order without changes, B2B suppliers can either confirm the whole order or confirm individual lines separately. The result will be that the purchase order or line will be set to status Confirmed and eventually the header status will be set to Confirmed.

When confirming an open order with changes, B2B suppliers can either confirm the whole order or confirm individual lines separately. Upon confirming with changes, a message is created in the Incoming Purchase Order Confirmation page.

Note:

• On order level, it is not possible to perform any further confirmation while there exists any message in Incoming Purchase Order Confirmation page for the order in status Received, Changed or Stopped.
• On order line level, it is not possible to perform any further confirmation while there exists any message in Incoming Purchase Order Confirmation page for the order line, in status Received, Changed or Stopped.
• It is not possible to perform any further confirmation, on order or order line level, if there exist a Purchase Order Change Order in status Planned, Released or Authorized.
• It is only possible to confirm an open order or line without changes when the status is Released.
• It is only possible to confirm with changes on order level, until the order has been fully received.
• It is only possible to confirm with changes for lines that are not fully received.
• It is possible to change the fields like Order Qty, Price, Discount and Delivery Date when confirming an open order or line with changes.
• In conjunction with confirmation with changes, the supplier has the possibility to add notes for each line.
• When confirming with changes, only the changed lines will be sent through messages while the unchanged lines will be confirmed directly on the purchase order.

View Fully Received Orders

Fully Received Purchase Orders provide the ability for suppliers to attach/ upload invoices to their Fully Received /Arrived Orders. This provides important information for the suppliers to follow up on below historical orders.

• Fully Arrived: Ordered parts in all Purchase Order lines in the respective Purchase Order, have arrived on the premises, but need to be (inspected and) received into stock.
• Fully Received: Ordered parts in all Purchase Order lines in the respective Purchase Order, have arrived and been (inspected and) received into stock.
• Closed: Ordered parts in all Purchase Order lines in the respective Purchase Order, have been received into stock, or remaining purchase order lines have either been manually closed or cancelled.

It should be noted that the Purchase Orders should not contain any order lines that are not fully received/arrived to be visible in View Fully Received Purchase Orders. It is only possible to upload documents on Purchase Order, but not on Lines.

It is possible to view more details about a whole order or a specific line by navigating to detail levels as well.

If purchase order lines contain configurable parts, it is possible to view details of configurations of such parts.  

If there exist component parts connected to purchase order lines, it is possible to view the details of components.

It is also possible to view document text connected to the Purchase Order, the Supplier, the Purchase Order Line or Supplier for Purchase Part, with output type that is connected to document number 6, Purchase Order.

Note:

• Parts and no-numbered parts are visible in the same list.
• External service orders are excluded from these views.
• Orders containing rental parts are excluded from these views.
• Purchase Orders should be connected to the user’s default supplier.

Estimated Future Demand

Estimated future demand is another important function provided for the B2B suppliers to view the probable demand.

It is possible to analyze estimated future demands in different date ranges and aggregation time periods like days, months, quarters and years.

The probable demand is reported by planned purchase orders, purchase requisitions and subcontracted manufacturing. The records will be visible for estimated future demands based on several criteria.

Notes:

• Order lines with line status Released and order status Planned are included.
• Purchase requisitions with status Closed or line status PO Created, POCO Created or Request Created are excluded.
• Only purchase requisition line Request Type Purchase Request are considered.
• Purchase requisitions with order code External service order are excluded.
• Authorization rejected purchase orders and purchase requisitions are excluded.
• Orders and requisitions containing rental lines are excluded.

Estimated Future Demand for Subcontracted Manufacturing

Subcontracted manufacturing is another type of demand included in estimated future demands. Outside operations is reported as subcontracted manufacturing in B2B procurement context.

Subcontracted manufacturing is reported based on following criteria    

• Shop order requisitions that includes outside operations.
• Status Planned shop orders with outside operations.
• Purchase requisitions with outside operation items.
• Purchase order lines in status Planned with outside operation items.

Handle Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI)

Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) concept makes suppliers to be responsible of maintaining inventories at customer sites. Therefore, suppliers have the possibility of initiating replenishments to refill the stock at customer’s site.

In order to facilitate suppliers to initiate replenishments, it is important to show the demands and supplies at customer’s site. However, some of the demands and supplies are accumulated and shown in order to provide a summary to the B2B supplier. Plan Horizon Date is important aspect when proving this summary. Plan Horizon is taken based on the minimum value between Purchase Lead Time and Earliest Unlimited Supply Date defined in Inventory Part/Lead time and Supply Dates  section. Following information is displayed to B2B supplier to handle VMI.

• On Hand Quantity
• All supplies and demands within Plan Horizon
• Projected On Hand Quantity
• All supplies and demands beyond Plan Horizon
• Supplies and demands per due date

Following criteria needs to be fulfilled in order to define a VMI part.

• VMI switch should be turned on in the Inventory Part/Supply and Demand Control section, for the B2B user’s defined sites.
• The supplier is set up as the primary supplier in the Supplier for Purchase Part page for the VMI enabled parts.
• The ownership of Supplier for Purchase Part page should be set as Company Owned or Consignment.

The B2B Supplier has the possibility to view open purchase order lines as well. Initiating replenishments is done by creating purchase orders.

Note:

• The earliest date based on the purchasing lead time and the earliest unlimited supply date is defined as the Plan Horizon Date.
• In this solution On Hand Qty is defined as the field Usable Qty in the Inventory Part Availability Planning page including project inventories.
• Projected On Hand Qty is calculated by adding On Hand Qty to all the supplies and reducing all demands within the Plan Horizon.
• One replenishment order contains only one VMI product.
• Planned Delivery Date should be set by the B2B supplier when initiating the replenishment order. This date will be considered as the promised delivery date of the created purchase order. The purchase order will be created in Released status and eventually be Confirmed. If there is an authorization rule applied during confirmation the order will remain in status Released.

Handle Consignment Stock

Supplier consignment stock, is supplier owned stock made available for the company to consume. Once stock has been consumed the supplier needs to be notified about this consumption. When notified, the supplier can create an invoice and the consumed parts will be ready for invoice matching.

In this solution, the B2B supplier can view information about consumed consignment stock. Furthermore, B2B suppliers has the possibility to acknowledge the consumption which will raise the status to SupplierNotifed and release the record(s) for invoice matching.

B2B supplier also have the possibility to view acknowledged consumptions.

Following information are displayed to the B2B supplier for consignment stock consumption.

• Part number and description.
• Supplier part reference.
• Date of consumption.
• Consumed quantity.

Note:

• New consumption is defined as record(s) in status Entered.
• Acknowledged consumption is defined as record(s) in status SupplierNotified.

Handle Request for Order Quotation

Request for order quotation is a form where you can request price quotations for specified parts and quantities together with the date of delivery. In addition, terms of delivery and shipping can be included in the request. Often, you send requests for quotations to several suppliers before you decide from whom to buy.

In this solution, B2B suppliers have the possibility to answer a communicated request for order quotation in the B2B solution. Once answered, the company can compare quotations and decide on which supplier to buy from, without having to manually enter answers on behalf of B2B suppliers.

Conditions for open RFQ overview pages.

• At least one line on RFQ with quotation line status Created.
• Only the latest communicated revision of an RFQ will be shown.

For all open RFQ´s it is possible to view details and submit answers for an entire RFQ or line by line. If Latest Reply Date is in the past it will not be possible to answer an RFQ.

B2B suppliers also have the possibility to follow-up on already sent quotations and see the progress on each answered quotation line.

Following information are displayed to the B2B supplier for follow-up on already answered RFQ lines.

• Quotation lines in status Rejected, Won (Approved), Answered and Order Created (Converted).
• RFQ references.
• Offered prices and discounts.
• Wanted and Promised delivery date.
• Quotation details.

Handle Request for Agreement Quotation

The request for agreement quotation is a feature to request quotations or bids from suppliers related to prices, discounts or other terms for specified parts or assortments for a certain a period of time.
Often, you send requests for quotations to several suppliers before you decide from whom to buy.

In this solution, B2B suppliers have the possibility to answer a communicated request for agreement quotation in the B2B solution. Once answered, the company can compare quotations and decide on which supplier to buy from, without having to manually enter answers on behalf of B2B suppliers.

Conditions for open RFQ overview pages.

• At least one line on RFQ should be in status Created.
• Only the latest communicated revision of an RFQ will be shown.

For all open RFQ´s it is possible to view details and submit answers for an entire RFQ or line by line. If Latest Reply Date is in the past it will not be possible to answer an RFQ.

B2B suppliers also have the possibility to follow-up on already sent quotations and see the progress on each answered quotation line.

Following information are displayed to the B2B supplier for follow-up on already answered RFQ lines.

• Quotation lines in status Rejected, Won (Approved), Answered and Agreement Created (Converted).
• RFQ references.
• Offered prices and discounts.
• Quotation details.

Register and Upload of Supplier Catalogs

The hosted supplier catalogs allow employees to request and procure products directly from the suppliers catalogs. In the supplier self-service portal, the B2B supplier can register and upload new catalogs as well as create new revisions of existing catalogs.

The catalogs will initially be created in status Preliminary and will be promoted to status Planned once submitted. A Planned catalog can be reviewed by the company using IFS and approved for employee self-service procurement.

Review and Maintain Company Information

In the supplier self-service portal, the B2B supplier can review general information about the company as well as addresses and contact persons. The supplier can request changes to the information. This will result in a change request being sent to the company using IFS, which will need to be approved before the change will take place in the application. 

The supplier gets an indication that there are pending change requests and you can follow up on previously requested changes in the portal.

View Subcontracted Manufacturing

In subcontracted manufacturing the B2B supplier performs a shop order outside operation using raw material or semi-finished goods provided by the subcontractor. There is a purchase requisition and/or a purchase order connected to each released shop order outside operation. These purchase requisitions and purchase orders are handled by the ordinary B2B procurement functionality described above in the sections about viewing open orders, confirming B2B purchase and viewing estimated future demand.

The information that the B2B supplier needs to have to perform the shop order outside operation (what should be done, when and how) is provided by the subcontracted manufacturing functionality. All the outside operation information for shop orders in status Released or higher is available for the B2B supplier:

• Order details (Quantities/Dates etc.).
• Outside operation details (Product/Material/Tool/Guidelines/Documents etc.).

The following outside operation information is highlighted for the B2B supplier:

• Outside operations where the connected purchase order needs to be confirmed.
• Late orders where the Planned Arrival Date is in the past.
• Outside operations where the status has been set to Parked by the subcontractor.