How to calculate the product availability date for ship node when Transfer orders are included?

Answer

MCF version 7.11

Product availability date calculation is based on many factors like Transfer schedules between the two nodes, cut-off time, processing days of the item and some other factors.

The following article explains how the transfer schedules between the nodes and the cut-off effect the Product availability date calculation.

When there are Transfer schedules between two nodes (Procurement node and ship node), the system calculates the product availability date such that the shipping can be done at the earliest from the ship node.In this process, the procurement happens accordingly such that the product will be available at the ship node as soon as possible.

Below is a detailed example to understand the product availability date calculation.

1. Suppose there are two nodes ShipNode (ship node for sales order) and ProcureFromNode (node from which inventory is procured and it is also the ship node for Transfer order).

2. Suppose, there is transfer schedule between the two nodes and the transit days configured in the transfer schedule between the ShipNode and the ProcureFromNode are as follows
                                    

       Sun   Mon  Tue   Wed  Thu   Fri    Sat
                          3      3        4       5     3

     The above configuration implies that Saturday and Sunday are holidays which means that transfer cannot happen on those two days and the cut off time for all other days is 5AM.

CUT-OFF TIME: It is the time configured in the Transfer schedules, where shipping cannot occur from procurement node if cut-off time is crossed at the time of Transfer order creation.

3. Create a sales order in such a way that Transfer order gets created. The following cases arise based on the transit days configured for the day on which order is created and the time of creation.

Note: All the dates used below are referring to the calendar year 2010 A.D

Suppose that the order is created on Wednesday. Now system checks for all the possible transfers such that the final shipment from the ShipNode is as early as possible (this happens when the optimization rule is based on date), which are as shown below:

1) Transfer from the ProcureFromNode to ShipNode on Thursday (7^th Oct)
Ship Date from ProcureFromNode = Thursday (7^th Oct)
Transit days = 5 (for Thursday)
Finally the Product Availability Date at ShipNode = Thu (7^th Oct) + 5days = 12 Oct.

2) Transfer from the ProcureFromNode to ShipNode on Friday
Ship Date from ProcureFromNode = Friday, 8^th Oct
Transit days = 3 (for Friday)
Finally the Product Availability Date at ShipNode = Fri (8^th Oct) + 3days = 11 Oct

Since the second option results in inventory being available at the ShipNode earlier, the system ships from ProcureFromNode on Friday rather than Thursday. Hence, the ProcureFromNode at the ShipNode is 11th Oct instead of 12th Oct.

However, if the Transit Days for Friday were to be 5 days, then clearly, the earliest possible shipment from the ShipNode would be if the procurement happened on Thursday (since the Product Availability Date at the ShipNode would be 8^th Oct + 5 days = 13^th Oct if the procurement was made on Friday).

In this way system satisfies the optimization criteria at the ship node by procuring the inventory from procurement node to ship node at the earliest based on transit days configured.