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Global Replenishment Settings

Updated

Summary 

The Global Replenishment Settings help control some basic behavior of the replenishment and order schedule calculations in StockIQ, and help to tune the order suggestions you see in the Place Orders screen.

It is accessible by clicking Admin--> System Configuration --> Global Replenishment Settings

Column Description

  • Number Of Replenishment Weeks - This refers to the length of the planning horizon for which we will generate a day-by-day replenishment plan.  52 weeks is a reasonable maximum for most organizations.  Occasionally StockIQ will recommend you reduce this to 26-39 weeks on particularly large instances (> 100K item-sites) to help with performance on your server.
  • Open Order Lookahead Days - This parameter refers to how far ahead StockIQ will look on the order schedule for an existing PO that will satisfy the order it is about to plan.  For example, if this value is set to 10 days, and StockIQ is about to suggest a receipt of 10 units to arrive on June 5th, but it sees a PO that is already in the system arriving on June 9th (within that 10 day horizon) for 15 units that will satisfy this requirement, then StockIQ will not recommend a duplicate order. 
    • If this value is left blank, StockIQ will look for the NEXT open PO, if any, and see if that quantity satisfies StockIQ's suggestions, regardless of how far out it is.  
    • Note that non-stock order policies, such as Buy To Order, ignore this parameter and look out the entire horizon, to ensure you are not left with excess stock on non-stock items.
  • Enable Expiration Forecast - this is a global flag to enable expiration forecast planning for when you are doing inventory lot tracking with expirations.  The Expiration Forecast will reduce projected available as inventory is projected to expire, helping you replenish appropriately for expiring inventory.
  • Enable Time Phased Statistical Inventory - This option enables the time-phased EOQ and time-phased safety stock calculations.  This has the effect of making a more visually interesting sawtooth chart, and can be important if you are sending a long-term firm-and-planned report to your suppliers that needs to take seasonality into effect.  
    • NOTE: This feature does come with a bit of a performance penalty, so only enable this if required
    • IMPORTANT: Whether or not this is enabled does not have any effect on your current order suggestions, those EOQ and SS values are always calculated fresh each day, regardless of whether or not this option is enabled.
  • Enable Blanket Purchase Order Planning - If your organization does blanket purchase orders, then enable this option to allow for the special Place Blankets PO planning to work.  This can be coupled with supplier-specific blanket PO settings in the Supplier Settings Overrides page.
  • Allow Independent Forecast Backorders - When calculating your projected inventory to show on the order schedule, StockIQ will normally allow your projected inventory to continue into the negative projected available due to independent forecast, on the presumption that this un-met forecast will turn into backorders that will need to be fulfilled later.  If your customer base is such that this will instead turn into a lost sale, and you will NOT have backorders, then disabling this option will "cap" your projected inventory at zero when forecast is the only affecting factor.  (If you have firm demands, those will still allow projected available to go below zero).  
  • Allow Dependent Forecast Backorders - Similar to above, except this applies to dependent forecast only.  Separating these option allows you to have different behavior for independent forecast (e.g. no backorders from forecasted sales directly out of this location), but to retain negative projection due to dependent forecast (e.g. planned assembly or pulls from spokes) where necessary.    This option also disables any projected negative due to non-firm dependent forecast, which you can view separately from firm-dependent forecast in the Order Schedule Grid.  Firm Dependent forecast (e.g. from high level firm orders), is still decremented regardless of this option.
  • Enable Incoming Shipment Planning - Enabling this option turns on the use of incoming shipment data to refine your replenishment planning.  StockIQ will examine open, incoming shipments from the IncomingShipment data feed to see when shipments against a PO are actually scheduled to arrive.  Whatever open, remaining quantity not yet on a specific shipment will be still shown on the order schedule in the "On Order" column on the PO's Planned Receipt Date, so that the total supply still due is represented.  If the shipment has an Expected DockDate specified, that will be used as the supply's arrival date.  If not, StockIQ will calculate one based on the actual date shipped and shipping + putaway lead time.  This allows for more refined planning of your inventory levels if you frequently have multiple shipments from your supplier(s) active against a single PO line.
  • Warehouse Capacity Comparison Quantity - This relates to the Item Warehouse Capacity and Shelf Life Planning feature.  In the Place Orders screen, if the order quantity that you're proposing to order will take you above your stated warehouse capacity for that item (if one is specified), then a warning flag and message are shown.  This box allows you to select which quantity is the one against which StockIQ should warn you for - On Hand, Current Available, or Projected Available.
  • Optimize Plan for Supplier On-Hand Info - When this is enabled, StockIQ will use any supplier on-hand information to see if the supplier will be able to ship-from-stock.  If so, SIQ will plan releases ignoring manufacturing lead time until the on-hand quantity is consumed, then resume planning to full lead time.

Place Orders

  • Add Lines to Order By Default - When enabled, in the Place Orders screen, order lines that have a nonzero order quantity will be pre-marked as in your order by StockIQ.
  • Add Lines with negative Adjusted Margin by default - When enabled, StockIQ will still add items where we've calculated negative margin to the order.  Warnings will still appear about these lines.  If you uncheck this option, lines where the schedule says you *need* the item, but it appears to be a buy that would lose money, these are not included in the order unless you add them manually.  See the discussion of Adjusted Margin in the Order Line Grid Columns topic.
  • Show Date Flag Prompts - When enabled, StockIQ will warn you about potentially improper dates you have entered, e.g. a receipt date inside lead time.
  • Show Plan-At-Risk Prompts - When enabled, StockIQ will warn you about finished good plan-at-risk possibilities when modifying quantity on BoM items.
  • Max Years-Of-Supply Order History - sets the maximum age of order history data kept in StockIQ.  Orders with a creation date more than this number of years ago are deleted.

Place Blankets

  • Skip Manufacturing Time By Default - When enabled, when new Blanket PO's are being created in the Place Blankets screen, the "Skip Manufacturing Time" option is selected by default on the blanket.  This indicates to StockIQ that when the blanket has reached its estimated ship date, planning for releases off of the blanket PO can include only shipping and putaway time, without having to wait for product to be manufactured.

Pricebreaks

  • Quantity Limit - Sets the default method by which StockIQ will stop increasing quantity to check for pricebreaks.  This prevents runaway optimization, e.g. don't buy a 3 year supply just because "it's a good deal."
    • None - No Limit
    • Excess Threshold - projected excess threshold projected when the item would arrive is used as an upper bound.
    • Projected Days of Supply - a target number of days of supply (e.g. 180 days) is used as the upper bound for pricebreak optimization.

 

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