Calendar constraints

In Sterling Intelligent Promising, calendar constraints are rules that define when specific fulfillment activities such as shipping, delivery, or pick-up can't occur. These constraints are essential to optimize fulfillment and calculate accurate promising dates for customers.

Calendar constraints are beneficial as they lead to the following optimized customer fulfillment:

Reduced delays as scheduling is avoided on non-operational days as weekends or holidays.
Accurate delivery and shipping dates and customer promises as non-operational days are included in transit and delivery calculations.

Carrier operating calendar

You can define a calendar that specifies which days are considered working days and non-working days for a carrier service. These days are influenced by many factors including:

Cut-off times: Late pickups might shift the transit to the next working day.
Non-working days: Weekends and holidays are defined as non-working days according to the carrier operating calendar.
Non-service days: Some carriers do not operate on certain days, such as Sundays or public holidays.

After you define the calendar, as a next step, you can apply the calendar constraints to a carrier service by using the UI or APIs. For more information, see Configuring carrier calendars and constraints and Configuring carrier calendar constraints by using APIs.

Carrier transit days

Carrier transit days are the number of working days that it takes for a shipment to travel from the origin to the destination by using a specific carrier. These days are typically provided by the carrier service and are calculated from the pickup date to the delivery date depending on the carrier's calendar. Carrier transit days might vary by carrier, mode of transport, or origin and destination pair. In Sterling Intelligent Promising, carrier transit days are used to:

Calculate estimated delivery dates (edd).
Align with customer delivery calendars.

Example: A carrier has a transit time of 3 days from US East to US West and the pickup is Monday. Delivery is expected on Thursday assuming that there aren't any nonworking days in between.

Carrier non-transit days constraint

In Sterling Intelligent Promising, carrier non-transit days are days when a carrier does not operate for pickup, transit, or delivery. For example, a carrier does not pickup shipments or move goods in transit. As a result, the delivery date is postponed accordingly. Non-transit days are factored into transit time calculations and delivery date estimations. Common examples include weekends, public holidays, or custom-defined blackout days that vary by carrier.

Carrier calendars are used to define carrier non-transit days to:

Include non-transit days in estimated delivery date (edd) calculations.
Ensure that customer delivery promises are scheduled for valid operational days.
Align with shipping cutoff times and pickup schedules.

For example, if a carrier has a two-day transit time and does not operate on weekends, a shipment that is picked up on Friday is delivered on Tuesday and not Sunday.

Carrier delivery days

Carrier delivery days are the days that a carrier completes deliveries to destinations. These delivery days usually exclude weekends, public holidays, and custom blackout dates. For example, if a carrier delivers only on Monday to Friday, and an order is shipped on Friday with a 2-day transit time, delivery is scheduled for Monday, skipping the weekend. In Sterling Intelligent Promising, you configure these days in the carrier calendar.

Carrier delivery days impact the estimated delivery dates (edd) calculations, Available to Promise (ATP) logic, and fulfillment optimization decisions.

To calculate the edd, the following factors are considered:

Carrier transit days, including non-transit constraints
Carrier delivery days. including non-delivery constraints
Node shipping calendar

Then the edd is selected that satisfies all these factors and honors the constraints.

Carrier non-delivery days constraint

Carrier non-delivery days are the days when a carrier service does not attempt package delivery to an address. These non-delivery days usually include weekends, public holidays, and custom blackout dates. If the scheduled delivery lands on a non-delivery day, then the package must wait at the distribution center until the next available delivery day. The non-transit day impacts the carrier non-delivery day. A non-transit day is considered a non-delivery day automatically as the package can't be in motion and delivery isn't possible.

For example, a carrier service has non-delivery days on Saturday and Sunday. As a result, any package that arrives on either Saturday or Sunday will be delivered on Monday, which is the next business day.

Carrier non-transit and non-delivery day constraints

A carrier might define both non-transit days and non-delivery day constraints. For example, Saturday and Sunday are defined as non-transit days, and in addition, certain specific dates are defined as non-delivery days. For more information, see Scenario: Calendar constraints.