Inventory Allocation

Inventory “Allocation” is the process of assigning the available quantities for an inventory item in a specific warehouse location to the outstanding sales order and shop order lines that have been entered for the item in that location. 

The Inventory Allocation process uses the information that is stored in each inventory item and in each sales order and shop order line to determine whether or not to allocate inventory to a specific order line.  A Scheduling Window is defined for each item and this window (a number of days) is used to determine which orders should be treated as current (should be allocated to immediately) and which orders should be treated as future shipments (and allocated to when they become current).  As each order line is entered into the system, the schedule date in the order line is compared to the scheduling window for the item.  If the schedule date of the line is within the current window (to days date plus the lead time defined in the item record), the line is considered current and the system reserves and tries to allocate inventory to the order line.  If the schedule date in the line is not within the current window, the system includes the ordered quantity in the total reserved quantity for the item, but it does not include the qty from the order in the reserved quantity for the item and it does not try to allocate inventory to the order line.  This behavior allows you to maintain the minimum amount of on hand inventory required in order to fill customer orders, and it ensures that the system prioritizes orders based on the date that they are scheduled for shipment  (sales orders), or to be put into production (shop orders).

Since the StreamV Allocation programs allocate based on the schedule date of each order line, the allocation and reconciliation programs are sometimes referred to as the scheduled shipping system.

Inventory Allocation is performed in various places throughout the system.  Allocation can be done automatically (on-line), on a batch basis, or manually, based upon the needs of the company.  Individual inventory items can be set up to automatically allocate available quantities, or they can be set up so that any available quantities must be manually allocated to the orders for the item.  Options also allow you to specify safety stock quantities for each item and to set the maximum quantity that the system can automatically allocate for each item.

This section describes how the StreamV Applications allocate or assign available inventory quantities.  It describes the basic terms, concepts and data fields that are used by the system when allocating inventory, and it describes how the system al

This section describes the scheduling window and how it is used by the inventory reconciliation and allocation routines in the StreamV system.

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Inventory Allocation Methods