Contract order delivery scheduled lines

The delivery scheduled lines are pre-scheduled delivery records that provide both buyers and sellers with visibility for upcoming product deliveries, enabling proactive supply chain planning, and exception handling.

The delivery scheduled lines are generated in advance based on the configuration and enable buyers to visualize upcoming deliveries and enable sellers to plan for the imminent demand. This forward-looking schedule supports manual adjustments such as rescheduling deliveries, modifying quantities, or cancelling lines. It offers a strategic alternative to making late-stage corrections in the supply chain, such as during shipping or returns, which are costlier and operationally disruptive.

Designed for daily execution, the agent creates delivery scheduled lines for future dates based on the defined lookahead window. If the agent does not run daily, it compensates for the missed days and generates delivery scheduled lines for valid future dates within the configured time frame. However, it does not create delivery scheduled lines for past dates and avoids generating delivery scheduled lines close to the current date, helping ensure practical lead times for processing, logistics, and fulfillment.

The scope of the agent is non-enterprise and processes all contract orders across the system.

The agent does not create delivery scheduled lines for:
  • Past dates
  • Dates within the avoidance window

Avoidance window logic

The agent determines the avoidance window by taking the maximum value between the two configuration parameters:
  • SAFE_DAYS_TO_FULFILL_AN_ORDER
  • NUM_DAYS_TO_AVOID_DSL_CREATION
The system compares both values and selects the larger number as the Avoidance Window.

The agent avoids creating delivery scheduled lines within this window from the current date to ensure sufficient lead time for processing, logistics, and fulfillment. Additionally, the contract order line schedule end date must be greater than or equal to the avoidance window from the current date for delivery scheduled lines to be created.

Scenarios

  • Today is Wednesday, 1 January.
  • The agent is set to run daily.
  • The contract line is configured to have deliveries every Wednesday.
  • The delivery scheduled lines creation rules are as follows:
    • NUM_DAYS_IN_ADVANCE_TO_CREATE_DSL = 30 (look 30 days ahead)
    • NUM_DAYS_TO_AVOID_DSL_CREATION = 10 (avoid creating delivery scheduled lines too close to today)
    • SAFE_DAYS_TO_FULFILL_AN_ORDER = 7 (number of days in advance to create an order)

Avoidance Window = Max (7,10) = 10 days

The agent runs on 1 January.

  • The rule avoids creating delivery scheduled lines within 10 days from today. So, the agent looks ahead from 11 January to 31 January (30 days).
  • Wednesdays in this range are - 15 January, 22 January, and 29 January.
  • The system notes the last created delivery date as 29 January, and the next one to consider as 5 February.

Then, the agent runs on 2 January to 4 January.

  • Everyday, the agent checks the new 30-day window. For example, 12 January to 31 January, then 13 January to 1 February, and so on.
  • The delivery scheduled lines for 15, 22, and 29 January are already created. The next eligible delivery date - 5 February, is still outside this range, and no new delivery scheduled lines are created.

The agent runs on 6 January.

  • The lookup range is considered from 16 January to 5 February.
  • The next eligible delivery date of 5 February falls within the range.
  • The delivery scheduled line is created for 5 February.
  • The system updates the following values:
    • DeliveryScheduleDate = 5 February
    • NextDeliveryScheduleDate = 12 February

Consider the extended downtime when the agent misses several days.

The agent does not run for a while and is triggered again on 25 January.

  • It now looks ahead from 4 February to 24 February based on the defined rules.
  • The recurrence schedule matches the Wednesdays - 5 February, 12 February, and 19 February.
  • The delivery scheduled line for 5 February exists.
  • The delivery scheduled lines are created for 12 February and 19 February.

Each delivery scheduled line has an OrderDate that is computed by subtracting SAFE_DAYS_TO_FULFILL_AN_ORDER from the RequestedDeliveryDate.