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Order Wizard

Updated

Summary

The Order Wizard is a screen that helps you to reach certain targets in the order you are building in an automated fashion, rather than having to make quantity adjustments by hand.

It is accessible in Step 2 of the Place Orders screen, in the Edit --> Order Wizard menu.  It can be used for any type of replenishment order - PO, Transfer, or Workorder/Manufacturing Order.

There is an extensive training video on the Order Wizard which we suggest you watch, available in the Support --> Videos section.

Steps

To get started with the Order Wizard, first you must begin building an order in the Place Orders screen by selecting a supplier and moving in to step 2.  When you have a good starting point for your order, open the order wizard by selecting it from the Edit menu.

Step 1: Inputs

Once the wizard starts, you must make your selections upon which the wizard will operate.

Targets

  • Target Type - The wizard supports various types of targeting scenarios.  As you select your target type, the "Target" box will update with additional options, as well as showing your current position, e.g. your current units vs the target you type in.
    • Units - target your order to a desired number of units
    • Cost - target your order to a desired total cost (before discounts)
    • Weight - Target your order to a desired weight
    • Cubes - Target your order to a desired cubic volume
    • Pallets - Target your order to a desired number of pallet quantities
    • Equivalency Units - Target your order to a number of "Equivalency Units" that you have defined.
    • Containers - Allows you to target your order to fill containers required by your order, if you have defined containers in the Shipping Containers setup.
    • Supplier Minimums - Allows you to target your order to all applicable order and category level supplier minimums for the items in your order.  You can choose to have targeting done for only Order minimums, free freight minimums, or both types together.
    • Pack Size Multiples - If you have multiple pack sizes defined, StockIQ can optimize your ordering to match, so that you order sensible real-world quantities for receiving - e.g. if you are 1 unit away from a full pallet...just order a pallet's worth.
    • Pricebreaks - Will optimize quantities in your order based on taking advantage of available item-level pricebreaks, comparing to the weighted-cost-per-unit of the discounted price versus the resulting holding cost penalties.
    • Days of Supply - Allows for simple adjustment of all quantities in the order to a target order days of supply, projected days of supply, or cycle stock days etc.
    • Supplier Item Minimums - If you have minimums at the Supplier-Item level (this is not common), then this will instruct StockIQ to adjust any quantities for all supplier-item pairs in your order to match any minimum order levels

Method - This controls the algorithm used by the Order Wizard for the targeting:

      • Multiple At A Time - this adds quantity in a round-robin fashion to each item in the order, much as though you might deal cards, adding the minimum order-multiple quantity on each go-round.
      • Even Order Days Supply - This tries to equalize the order quantity days-of-supply of each item in the order, for example, ordering 30 days of supply.
      • Even Total Days of Supply - This goes a step further, and tries to equalize the projected days of supply at lead time of the items in your order, for example, 30 days of supply at lead time, when the order quantities arrive.
      • Even Days of Cycle Stock - This is the cleverest version, where quantities are adjusted so that when the order quantities arrive, each item has approximately the same number of days of Cycle Stock, so that hopefully all items will reach the point where they need to be re-ordered at about the same time.

Targeting Level - Defines whether your target is at the entire order level, or if the targets are individual for each site.  This only applies if you have selected more than one location in your order.  In this case, you can specify that you want targeting to be 500 units at EVERY site in your order, (Site Level), or 500 units across each site (Order Level). Enable the "Specify target levels by site?" checkbox to be able to specify your targets on a site-by-site basis.

  • Target - For targeters where you have a numeric target to provide, such as a target units or cubes, this box is where you enter your target.
    • TIP: If you are doing site-level targeting and enable to site-specific targets option, you will be shown a small grid where you can enter in the per-site targets.
  • Stop: If the wizard cannot get exactly to your target, for example if multiples don't allow it to reach your exact number, this allows you to specify if you need the targeting to be slightly over (such as meeting a minimum) or slightly under (e.g. staying under a max capacity)
  • Use Coverage to bring in extra items - This is a VERY useful option that allows the order wizard to use automatically increasing days coverage values to bring in additional items to reach your target.  This way, you reach your target via adding items that you will need to order shortly, rather than ordering more of the items that you happened to need right now.  One example is to be able to fill a container with things that you will need soon, in order to make sure a container is full of the most useful items.

Limits

  • Quantity Limit - This select box allows you choose how you want order quantities on any given item to be limited, so as to prevent any runaway targeting.
    • None - No limit (not recommended under most situations)
    • Projected Excess - stop when the order quantity on the line would lead to projected excess for that product
    • Projected Days of Supply - limit to a target projected days of supply based on the order quantity.  (You can type in the desired max days)
  • Modify only Highest Usage Items - Allows you to limit the adjustments to only the items that you will sell through most quickly.
  • Change Quantities I have already edited - normally disabled, this means that StockIQ will not modify order quantities that you yourself have already changed.
  • Apply Multiple Pack Sizing Rules - If you have additional order multiples beyond your base multiples that you're sending in the data feeds (e.g. Layer and Pallet information), then enabling this will allow StockIQ to try and intelligently target your order quantities to full pack sizes where necessary, e.g. if you're 1 box from a full pallet, just order a full pallet.
  • Include Build To Order and Buy To Order Items - allows you to optimally include Build-To-Order and Buy-To-Order items, which are normally excluded from quantity additions.

Additionally, you can use the Filters button at the bottom of the screen to filter what items are/are not included in the targeting.

When you have your inputs configured the way you want, click next.

Step 2: Results

If the wizard is able to reach your target, a success message will be shown.  If it is not, an error will be shown.  One common reason is having too many limits, e.g. limiting the SKUs to be targeted, limiting by DoS, or limiting the SKUs that can be changed in your filters.

You can view the exact changes made by clicking the "Changes" tab.

TIP: If you are looking for full containers, group by the Container Number column.

You can still edit quantities in the results grid to tailor your targeting.  

When you are happy, click the Apply button, and your changes will be copied back into the main order.

Update Existing Lines Option - This allows you to instruct StockIQ to take the results of the targeting and update existing lines in your Supply Order Lines grid, leaving items not in the wizard untouched, versus the normal mode of replacing the entire list with the results from the Order Wizard targeting.

 

 

 

 

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