Rationing available stock at the DC across multiple orders by priority

[Former Member]

Hi experts,

We have a business requirement to ration available stock held at the DC across multiple orders in the situation of a shortage.

The requirement is to do this rationing is based on the document type of the originating STO and Ordering Site classification, so that the most significant order type and most significant store gets the available inventory first.

We have 5 primary store STO document types and we wish to classify them from 1 to 5, 1 being the most imporant.

We also have circa 300 stores and likewise wish to classify them 1 - c.300, 1 being the most important.

Using this classification data we want to generate Outbound Deliveries from the STOs.

A simple example:

We have a Qty of 20 pieces of Article 1 in the DC available:

The following STOs have been generated:

Doc. Type 1 - Store 1 - Article: 1 Qty: 10

Doc. Type 1 - Store 2 - Article: 1 Qty: 5

Doc. Type 2 - Store 1 - Article: 1 Qty: 10

Doc. Type 2 - Store 2 - Article: 1 Qty: 15

We would expect the following Outbound Deliveries to be generated:

OBD 1 - Store 1 - Article: 1 Qty: 10

OBD 2 - Store 2 - Article: 1 Qty: 5

OBD 3 - Store 1 - Article: 1 Qty: 5

We need this processing to take place in the shortest possible time, as we have strict timings around orders being available in the DC WMS for picking due to a short lead time. We therefore want to maximise parallel processing, rather than just sequencing the running of VL10B to be one order type and one store at a time.

Any ideas on how best to achieve this requirement and how you would approach it?

Has anyone done similar types of rationing before?

Many thanks in advance!

David

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

Rationing in a stock shortage situation is handed as standard in APO supply network planning (SNP), or in some IS solutions such as Retail or AFS in an allocation process, with a defined "fair share Algorithm" allowing stock in short supply to be allocated to stores or customers using predefined business rules.

Thanks James

[Former Member]

Hi James,

Thanks for the information, we are using IS Retail 4.7.

The complexity we face is that we need to create outbound deliveries off a collective STO generated via Merchandise Distribution with SLS. So this STO is effectively one site along the chain from the originating store.

We're trying to ration the stock at the source DC across the collective STOs by Document Type and Originating store.

So that the most important Order (IE promotion etc) and the most important / profitable store get the stock.

For example, we wouldn't want our "New Store STOs" (of which the store may not have even opened yet) and not be able to give any stock to our biggest store who's get a promotion this weekend.

I know the simple answer is don't run out of stock, but we try to run a tight ship on quite a few articles, so we need to ensure we give it to the right store and for the right reason.

Hope that helps explain the scenario in more detail.

Many thanks,

Dave

[Former Member]

Hi,

You can try an work out the business process from a different perspective.

You have a stock on hand of 20EA at DC which needs to be allocated.

Create an Allocation based on a Algorithm, then generate a STO and follow on documents.

So I guess by changing ur process slightly yu can make it work via standard SAP.

Cheers