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:

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 option in the Inventory Part/Misc Info page, 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.

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 page.

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 page.

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 page.
• 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 page.

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  option enabled.

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.

The Availability Check at Shipment Order Entry and Reservation

When entering a shipment order line with a part set up for availability check, both the quantity available at the selected due date and the earliest possible due date with full required quantity available is given as feedback to the user. If the full required quantity is already available at the selected due date, no feedback is given.

In comparison with customer order line entry, the feedback in shipment order is just information and no dates will automatically change according to it. It is possible to continue processing the shipment order line even when there are availability constraints. If the constraints remain when the shipment is being reserved, there will be a hard stop. If the reservation is done manually on the shipment order line, the availability check is ignored and the reservation will succeed as long as there is enough quantity not reserved in the stock. This applies to manual reservation on the shipment line as well.