FIFO IBA

In the default, FIFO IBA, the demands of the impacted orders are reallocated in the FIFO order. This means that the orders that are placed first are promised prior to the placing of orders.

For example, the orders shown in the following table exist in the system with their corresponding supplies and demands. Assume that it takes one day to ship out orders after a purchase order has been received.

Table 1. IBA example
Purchase order Item Node Qty ETA Sales order Item Node Qty Demand ship date Order date
PO1 Item1 Node1 5 11/15/08 SO1 Item1 Node1 5 11/16/08 11/03/08
PO2 Item1 Node1 5 11/20/08 SO2 Item1 Node1 5 11/21/08 11/05/08
PO3 Item1 Node1 5 11/21/08 SO3 Item1 Node1 5 11/22/08 11/10/08

If the sales order "SO1" is cancelled and FIFO item-based allocation is considered, the "SO2" and "SO3" orders that were placed after "SO1" are reallocated to an earlier date because the supply becomes available on an earlier date as shown in the following table:

Table 2. FIFO IBA result
Purchase order Item Node Qty ETA Sales order Item Node Qty Demand ship date Order date
PO1 Item1 Node1 5 11/15/08 SO1 Item1 Node1 0 N/A 11/03/08
PO2 Item1 Node1 5 11/20/08 SO2 Item1 Node1 5 11/16/08 11/05/08
PO3 Item1 Node1 5 11/21/08 SO3 Item1 Node1 5 11/21/08 11/10/08

The Item Based Allocation functionality consists of two processes that should be performed one after the other, as described here:

  1. Identifying items to perform Item-based Allocation.

    The process of identifying items is as follows:

    1. Detecting when Item-Based Allocation is required for an item:

      Sterling Order Management System Software detects that the Item Based Allocation process is required for an item at a node when there is no on-hand availability. This occurs when Sterling Order Management System Software is retrieving the availability of an item with the intent to perform an update through promising APIs such as reserveAvailableInventory, modifyWorkOrder, scheduleOrder, and releaseOrder. If the Use Item Based Allocation rule is enabled and there is no on-hand availability at any node, an Item-Based Allocation trigger is inserted (if it does not already exist) into the YFS_IBA_TRIGGER table for the item and node combination with the IBA_REQUIRED flag set to "Y" (only when the item and node have IsItemBasedAllocationAllowed ="Y"). This indicates that the IBA process is required for the item at the indicated node and the system is now allowing the triggering of the item-node combination to be processed by the IBA agent.

    2. Triggering the Item-Based Allocation agent to process an item and a node:

      After Sterling Order Management System Software detects that the Item-Based Allocation process is required for an item at a node (a record exists in the YFS_IBA_TRIGGER table with IBA_REQUIRED="Y"), Sterling Order Management System Software allows triggering of that item-node combination to be processed by the Item-Based Allocation agent, based on the following occurrences.

    3. When Supply Changes

      When changes in the supply occur and the supply type has TriggerItemBasedAllocation="Y", Sterling Order Management System Software triggers the inventory item and node to be processed by the IBA agent by updating the IBA_RUN_REQUIRED field to "Y".

    4. When Certain Demand Changes

      When there is a change in the demand, the inventory item and the node are triggered to be processed by the IBA agent by updating the IBA_RUN_REQUIRED field to "Y" in the YFS_IBA_TRIGGER table.

      When the following changes occur, the inventory item and node are triggered to be processed by the IBA agent by the IBA agent by updating the IBA_RUN_REQUIRED field set to “Y” in the YFS_IBA_TRIGGER table.

      Order cancellation

      Order backordered or backordered from node

      Reservation cancellation

  2. Performing the Item Based Allocation process

    Item-Based Allocation process is performed by the Item-Based Allocation agent under the General process type. For each item-node combination that is triggered, the agent finds all the applicable order lines or order line reservations containing the item-node combination and tries to move their uncommitted and committed demands to a more suitable format based on the available supplies, which is in turn based on the user-configured IBA selection rules or the FIFO (First-In-First-Out) IBA selection rules.

    The system then creates new positive order line reservations with the matched supply's first ship date and negative order line reservations for the existing demand ship date. After the orders are processed, they are put on hold to be rescheduled if changes are detected in the order line reservations of the order. The rescheduling process performs the actual rescheduling of the orders by utilizing the order line reservations created by the Item-Based Allocation process.

    The IBA agent does not take scheduling constraints into account, including node capacity constraints. Therefore, during an inventory availability check, IBA does not consider node capacity.

    Note: A hold type is required to be set up for the change order line reservations modification type so that the order can be placed on hold for scheduling.