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Safety Stock

Updated

Summary

The Safety Stock screen provides a summary of the current safety stock, additional safety stock options, the factors that go into safety stock calculations, and other statistical inventory information. This screen is meant to help users understand how safety stock is being calculated and determine which safety stock makes the most sense for a given item-site within an organization.

Column Descriptions

  • Item - the Item being evaluated.
  • Site - the Site in which this item is being evaluated.
  • Order Policy - the active order policy for this item. This is important since some order policies are non-stock order policies, and will result in an Active SS of 0, even if the statistical SS would otherwise call for a safety stock.
  • Usage Pattern - the current usage pattern for the evaluated item, this provides information on the velocity of the item through your inventory. 
  • Settings - Shows the settings used for arriving at the safety stock values shown. Typically, this will be your default settings, but if you have an override in place for an item, it will show the text description of the override.
  • Units
    • On Hand Quantity - the current on-hand quantity, in units.
    • Active SS - the active safety stock, e.g. what is being used currently.
    • Active Tgt Stock - the active target stock value.
    • Active Max Stock - the active max stock value; see Statistical Inventory Overview (Safety Stock, Target Stock, Max Stock).
    • Stat SS - The statistical SS calculated by StockIQ, based on the statistical safety stock settings.  This might be from the standard SS, Large Regular Pull, Sporadic, or Retrospective methods, depending on system settings.
    • Stat Max - the associated statistical max stock level calculated by StockIQ.
    • Active Vs Stat Units - Compares the difference between your active SS and your pure statistical SS. This gives a good sense of differences from any overrides or ERP-supplied safety stock values you have in your system.
  • Value - All the same values as above but presented in terms of the inventory value (e.g. $), rather than unit-based measures.
  • Days - All the same values as above but presented in terms of days-of-supply, rather than units.
  • Usage For Safety Stock - These columns are for showing information on how the usage values are being calculated for safety stock, since forecasted usage is one of the main inputs into the safety stock calculation. These usage values are controlled in part by your Global Safety Stock Settings.
    • Usage Source - defines whether independent, dependent, or both sources of demand are being included in the safety stock calculations. Typically, you will want both sources included (top level items will be independent only).
    • SSHistorical Daily Usage - historical daily usage value, based on the usage source configuration
    • SSForecasted Daily Usage - current forecasted daily usage, based on usage source configuration
    • SS Daily Usage @ Lead Time - forecasted daily usage at lead time, based on usage source configuration.  This is the usage value used most of the time for your safety stock calculations.
  • Factors - These are additional factors going into the statistical safety stock calculation that affect your final statistically calculated values.
    • Planning LT - the end-to-end planning lead time. Long lead times mean more SS is required.
    • Cumulative LT - when you have a bill of materials or hub/spoke relationships you have the option of planning to the cumulative end-to-end lead times of all hops along the chain.
    • Target Service Level - the target service level active for this item that is used for calculating the SS value.
    • Active SS Expected SL - This shows the expected service level you will achieve from your active safety stock. For example, if you have an override for 2x of the safety stock that StockIQ is planning for, your expected SL will be much higher than your target SL for that item.
  • SS Methods - This section shows the results of the different types of safety stock calculations StockIQ runs.  The most common result will be for StockIQ to have chosen the "Standard" method, with "Large Regular Pull" being relatively common as well.

Context Menu

In the Safety Stock screen, if you right-click on a row, the following menu will appear:

  • Inventory Snapshot - provides item-site attribute information.
  • Inventory Exchange Curve - displays a graph specific to this item-site on how safety stock changes with service level changes.
  • Forecast Chart - a visual of the item-site forecast, this is the same as what you would see in the Forecast Manager.
  • Sawtooth Chart - the sawtooth diagram for this item-site.
  • Item-Site Notes - notes related to this item-site.

 

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