Transferred Items

APS Planning creates planned transfer orders, which must be firmed into actual transfer orders using the Planning Detail or Material Planner Workbench form. There are two ways transferred items are planned depending on the Global Planning Mode.

Global Planning

If Global Planning is selected, during global APS Planning, or during any incremental planning activity, if an item requires a component that is supplied by another site (that is, an "inter-site" transfer), the system plans transfer orders as follows:

  • Contact the supply site that produces the remote item (based on the Supply Site field on the item record).
  • Plan the item in a test copy of the supply site's planner database (also considering the transit time value defined on Inter-Site Parameters).
  • Plan the component in the supply site's production planner database and create a planned transfer demand order.
  • Create a corresponding planned transfer supply order at the site requiring the remote component.
Note: Due dates on planned transfer orders include transit time.

If APS Planning is unable to contact the supply site (due to the site's planner database being down, network problems, etc.), it uses the item's lead time and the transit time defined on Inter-Site Parameters to determine the projected availability of any remote components.

Transfer orders can automatically generate additional remote orders, depending on the component's requirements. For example, if site A needs a component that is produced at site B, and the component at site B requires a component produced at site C, the APS Planning plans the demand transfer order at site C automatically.

Note: The system does not globally plan intra-site transfers (that is, items where the Supply Site is set to the local site).

Once a transfer supply order is generated by a demand order, no other demand order can use inventory created by the transfer supply order. However, any excess inventory generated due to minimum lot sizes remains available at the supply site for other demands to allocate.

Multiple Site Planning

If Multiple Site Planning is selected, or if the supply site is not defined on the Planning Parameters: Sites form, set up replication rules to allow the supply site to see any demands coming from the site that initiated APS Planning. Whenever the APS planner encounters this situation a Transfer Order Demand is generated at the requesting Site and a corresponding Transfer Order Supply is sent to the supplying Site via Replication. See “Setting Up Planned Transfer Order Replication” for more information.