Finding Additional Stock 

Use

Normally, customer service representatives (CSRs) take quantities from unrestricted stock and place them into CSR stock. This stock is then reserved, or owned, by the individual CSRs. From here, they can allocate this stock to their sales orders.

If you don’t have enough stock of a material in CSR stock, you can find out who else might have additional stock available by choosing Goto ® Stock in the ARun Optimizer. The system displays a dialog box showing the quantity of available stock:

·        In your own CSR stock

·        Reserved by other CSRs

·        Free available stock (unrestricted stock that has not been reserved by anyone).

·        Currently assigned to your orders

·        Currently assigned by other CSRs to their orders

You can then decide how best to obtain additional stock.

This information is for display only, to help you decide how best to proceed. You cannot move stock using this function. Once you decide what you want to do, you exit the display and select a different transaction (for example, placing more stock into the CSR stock).

Integration

If you deallocate stock from an order, it goes into your private stock – a temporary buffer. This stock is immediately available to you, and you alone have access to it; no other CSRs can see or take this stock until you save the transaction. Once you save, the stock in your private buffer is moved to CSR stock. Only then will other CSRs with the appropriate permissions be able to access to this stock.

Example

See Example: Finding Additional Stock

Prerequisites

In Customizing for the ARun Optimizer, the node Configure ARun Optimizer Type contains several fields in the Find Stock section of the screen. The first five fields allow you to define the sequence (priority) in which the system attempts to find stock

·        Own (CSR, private)

·        Other CSR stock

·        Free available stock

·        Own assignments

·        Other CSR assignments

Assign a unique number (1 to 5) to each field. For example, if you enter 1 in the Own (CSR, private) field, then the system first tries to find stock in this area first before trying anywhere else (such as free available stock). If you leave a field blank, the system ignores that stock in its search for suitable material.

There is also a Stop Logic field. This field determines whether the system stops searching as soon as it finds sufficient material in one of the stock categories above

Suppose you have a requirement for 100 pieces but only 60 pieces have been allocated. The system will attempt to locate another 40 pieces by searching the other stock categories in the sequence you defined above. The entry in the Stop logic field has the following effect:

1 = Complete the search for all stock categories, even if the system finds 40 or more pieces available in the first stock category searched. The system looks for 40 pieces in each stock category; this lets the user know whether he or she could take the full requirement of stock from any one of several different areas.

2 = Stop the search as soon as 40 pieces are found within any given stock category.

The second option gives quicker results, since the system does not have to check every category every time.