Shelf life risk

The shelf life risk work queue monitors the age of products since origination, such as harvesting date or manufacturing date, and alerts you if a product is at risk of expiring. You can use this information to prioritize the shipment of products to ensure that products are delivered at their optimal age and quality.

The shelf life risk work queue alerts you if a product is at risk of expiring based on the configured risk thresholds. You can set risk thresholds for each location type along the supply chain. The risk thresholds that you set are specific to the location type and cannot be configured differently for individual facilities of the same type.

Enabling shelf life risk

You must be entitled to the Transparent Supply application within the Supply Chain Intelligence Suite to access the shelf life risk work queue. Organization administrators who are also assigned a Builder role can enable work queues for your organization. You can set up the rules for the shelf life risk work queue by opening a case with IBM Support.
Note: The shelf life risk work queue requires Insights API to be active with a separate license.
To enable the shelf life risk work queue, complete the following actions:
  1. Click Builder from the side menu, then click Work queue builder.
  2. Click the Sample tab.
  3. Select the Shelf life risk checkbox.
  4. Click Activate.
    Note: After you activate this work queue, you need to open a case with IBM Support to set up your rules.
To set up your rules for the shelf life risk work queue, provide IBM Support with the following information:
  • Product ID
    • Provide a Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) or an IBM Product identifier.
    • For example: urn:ibm:ift:product:class:0088672.testbeef
  • Location type
    • Provide the type of location.
    • For example: WAREHOUSE
      Note: Rules are configured for the facility type and cannot be configured differently for individual facilities of the same type.
  • Age trigger
    • Provide the threshold for the product to be considered at-risk, as either the maximum number of days since origination or the minimum number of days to expiry.
    • For example: Max days since production 12

Viewing work items

You can access the work queues that you are entitled to and have enabled within the Control Tower menu.

To get started click Work queues in the side menu. A list of the queues available to you will be displayed.

When you click Shelf life risk, a list of work items are displayed. Each work item represents a product that is considered at risk at a location based on the rules that are configured.

An example list of work items for the shelf life risk work queue. For each work item, the product, location, location type, quantity at risk, days at risk, expiration, assignee, and status are displayed.
Within this list of work items you are able to quickly view the:
  • Product
    • The name of the product.
    • Click a product name to view sample resolutions and additional information about the at-risk product.
  • Location
    • The name of the location where the product is currently in inventory.
  • Location type
    • The type of location.
  • Quantity (QTY) at risk
    • The quantity of product inventory at the location that has exceeded the configured risk threshold.
  • Days at risk
    • The number of days that at-risk items have exceeded the configured threshold. Expressed as a range from minimum to maximum number of days.
  • Expiration
    • The date that the products expire.
  • Assignee
    • The name of the person who is assigned to the issue.
    • Click the Overflow menu (
      Overflow menu icon
      ) to assign yourself or leave notes for your team to view.
  • Status
    • The Supply Chain Intelligence Suite automatically assigns a status to each work item based on the actions that are taken. You can also update the status at any time.

To view additional information for an at-risk product, click the on the product you are interested in. You are provided with sample resolutions and additional details.

Resolutions

You can create a customized work flow that can be repeatedly applied to issues of the same type.

For example, you can define the roles that complete specific actions:

Role Action
Unassigned Transfer request. Request
transfer of a product from a distributor to a location.
Carrier Review request. Determine
whether the request can be fulfilled.

Additional details

The Additional details section provides you with more information about the at-risk product.

An example Additional details section. The widgets in the Additional details section are described in Table 1.

You are provided with the following information:

Table 1. Additional details widgets
Widget Description Shown as
Quantity at risk The quantity of product inventory at the location that has exceeded the configured risk threshold. Count
Percentage at risk The percentage of product inventory at the location that has exceeded the configured risk threshold. Percentage
Days at risk The number of days that at-risk items have exceeded the configured threshold. Expressed as a range from minimum to maximum number of days. Range
At risk age trigger The risk threshold that is configured for the product and location type. This trigger is based on either the time until the product’s expiration or the time since the product’s production. Range
Average inflow age The average age of the products when they enter the location, measured in days.
Note: Only products received in the last 30 days are considered in this metric.
 Count
Average outflow age The average age of the products when they leave the location, measured in days.
Note: Only products shipped in the last 30 days are considered in this metric.
 Count
Product age distribution A graph of the number of cases versus the number of days since production, highlighting products that have exceeded the configured risk threshold. Bar chart
Location details Additional location details, including the location name, location type, address, city, state, and zip code. List
At risk product identifications The serial numbers for the products at the location that have exceeded the configured risk threshold. List
At risk timeline A visual representation of the current date relative to the product's at risk trigger. Timeline chart