Sales

Carry forward logic for sales schedule quantities

In the automotive industry, schedules are used to communicate demand from the OEM to the supplier. If demand changes, for example because quantities go up or down, then suppliers require to handle these changes as they see fit.

Some suppliers require the ability to respond to quantity changes in the short term. After the picking or staging processes have started, these changes require correct handling in Warehousing.

Changes to shipping quantities can be caused by fill up logic for handling units or be based on delivery patterns.

To carry forward quantity adjustments to the schedule requirement quantities, terms and conditions parameters have been added. These parameters control the behavior of the new carry forward logic.

Requirement-date search for sales contract lines

In a typical automotive business relationship, a contract is negotiated between a supplier and a customer before EDI schedule messages are sent to the supplier.

During the effective time period of a contract, an item number can be modified by customers and suppliers in these circumstances:

• Customer: If, on a specific effective date, the customer item number changes, then the supplier is informed in advance. The supplier can then adjust the contract before the item number change is implemented.
• Supplier: If, from a specific effective date, the supplier decides to use a different item number, then the customer is not aware of this item number change. The same customer item number is still used in the communication between supplier and customer.

A functional enhancement has been made regarding the supplier-driven item number change.

When a supplier item is transitioned to another item, some automotive suppliers require the ability to use the individual requirement dates for assigning the requirements to the contract lines (phase out and phase in). This to replace the use of one EDI schedule publishing date to search for contracts, all at once.

To support the phase out and phase in process, adjustments have been made to these processes:

• Handling of incoming EDI schedules
• In-transit quantity calculation
• Schedule netting during shipment