Tiers and Preferences usage and replenishment

Optionally, you can enable usage tracking and replenishment of your tiered and preferred products, allowing for more efficient inventory levels. This feature tracks usage for a stocked product that you have identified as the highest priority preference in a tier group, and ensures that product's inventory is maximized through the Authorized replenishment path (ARP) and Recommended Replenishment Action Reports (RRAR).

To enable this feature, assign a numeric priority to a Product Preference in SA Table Code Value Setup, select Yes in the Allow Usage Movefield in Product Warehouse Description Setup, and clear Exclude Usage Move in Product Warehouse Product Setup. Ensure that the numeric priority is associated with only one product preference in a tier group. For example, for the Tier, Best: drill bit, in Tier group 09876, only product A is assigned the Preference numeric priority of 1.

When a product is ordered in Sales Order Entry, the system validates the settings to determine if the product is identified with a tier, tier group, and preference. If the product has an associated preference, the system validates whether you have enabled the usage and replenishment feature. If enabled, the system validates for the highest priority stocked product in that tier and warehouse. If that priority is the highest priority, the system associates the usage with that product.

This usage is added to the product transaction record (ICET), and then is applied through typical processing, such as the Sales Entry Invoice Processing Report and Product Administration Month End Processing Report. Because the usage was moved to the highest preference product, you keep more in inventory for that product and decrease the amount of inventory carried for the lower preference products.

Other considerations

  • Ensure that the Usage option in Sales Order Entry-Selected Products-Extended is selected. This option is selected by default. Normal processing uses this option to determine whether usage is recorded on this product.
  • Product types not validated for usage and replenishment using tiers and preferences are: order-as-needed (OAN), build-on-demand kit components, pre-built kit components, value-add components, warehouse transfers, and manual stock adjustments from Product Quantity Adjustments Entry.
  • If you have set up a catalog product for tier, tier group, and preference in Product Catalog Setup, that product can not be validated for usage and replenishment.
  • Although Product Exception Processing Administration can be used for tier, tier group, and preference, this function cannot be used for usage and replenishment.
  • If you change the tier, tier group, or preference settings for a product and that product no longer has the highest priority preference, you must manually move the usage from the original highest preference priority product to the new highest preference priority product using the override functionality in Product Warehouse Product Setup-Ordering-Usage-Show Usage. To activate editing in the Usage Information window, the Ordering view must be in Edit mode. This is a one-time override for this change. The system now begins updating the usage on the product based upon saved changes.