Release Customer Schedule, Manually
Explanation
There are two distinct types of information in customer schedules: planning information and shipping
information. For a customer agreement, users define which type of schedule, either plan or call-off or both, is
considered as an authorization for shipment. The remaining plan data (if not used for shipment) is either passed to
MRP for planning purposes or used only in tolerance checking. The agreement setting for Delivery Authorization
controls this behavior.
Note: This planning information will not be seen by MRP if the demand has been imported by the master
schedule, even if the master schedule line has been deleted.
Like the reconciliation process, the releasing process must align the schedules with the previous shipment
information so that the final picture does not skip or double any quantities. While automation is the goal, any
discrepancy during the automatic release process will result in an error message thus requiring manual intervention
for release. Due to the dependency between schedule versions, no new schedule can be processed until previous
schedules are released.
The customer schedule agreement part parameter Delivery Initiation Point decides about the process that results
from releasing a new customer schedule:
- Delivery Initiation Point = Customer Order Line: Schedules that are to be used as shipping authorization are
written as customer order releases to the order established for the customer agreement part. An important thing
to recognize is that, when a new schedule arrives, it could override the previous shipment information
established on the order. Thus, any customer release still at a status prior to Picked is canceled and
replaced with new information. The schedule and shipment information is always fluctuating.
Generating new customer order lines may also activate automatic shipment in the customer order release process.
Automatic shipment is made possible by using create on demand orders, which will create new orders and add order
lines to them, when the schedule is released. As part of the schedule release process, the orders created on
demand will also be released. Thus, creating a shipment and automatically connecting the order lines to it.
- Delivery Initiation Point = Customer Schedule Line: The delivery authorized schedule lines with a reconciled
qty due > 0 create new available lines for shipments (with Source Qty = reconciled qty due). The available
lines for shipments of the previously released schedule are deleted. As next step, the connectable source qty are
calculated by reducing the source qty in chronological order by the already connected but not yet shipped
shipment line quantities. This process avoids release exceptions.
When the customer schedules are connected with the Customer agreement Cross References, you
can release multiple customer schedules which contains the same customer, same delivery address, different
customer’s part numbers (activated in the same period) and different customer agreement cross references.
Also, when the customer schedules consists of the same customer, same delivery address, same customer’s part
number (activated in the same period) and different customer agreement cross references, you can release multiple
customer schedules. However, user cannot release multiple customer schedules when they have the same customer
agreement cross reference.
The schedule release function can either be run as a background process or executed online.
In order to run the process automatically this must be indicated on the customer schedule agreement.
Note: A customer schedule can be released even if the approver is blocked for use.
Prerequisites
- The customer schedule must have been successfully approved.
- The release function should not be automatically run. This is stated on the customer
schedule agreement.
System Effects
- If a previous schedule plan or call-off is overlapped by this new schedule the previous data will be
overruled by the new schedule.
- If the schedule line is converted into a customer order line and already reserved and delivered to the
customer, the schedule line will receive Release Exception status and will need manual intervention
(Delivery Initiation Point = Customer Order Line)
- If the schedule line is converted into a customer order but not yet reserved, the previous customer order
line will be canceled and replaced by a new one that states the current quantity (Delivery Initiation Point =
Customer Order Line)
- Already connected shipments can be further processed, still based on the inforamtion of the previous
schedule. New shipments will be created based on the new schedule information.
- If the PO Information Use option is set to Use, and the purchase order number stated
in the schedule line does not match the purchase order number stated in the customer order connected to the
customer schedule agreement part, the customer schedule will receive Release Exception status.