Matching supply to demand
IBM® Sterling Order Management System Software enables you to configure how you match multiple supplies of an item to the demand for that item. This is accomplished by configuring your system to use either closest ETA mode or first ETA mode.
- Closest ETA mode: This mode matches the demand with the supply that is available closest to the demand’s ship date, without a delay of shipment. For example, consider an item that is needed for a demand’s ship date of June 1, which is two weeks in the future. In addition to the on-hand availability of this item, additional supplies of this item are scheduled for May 30 and July 30. When closest ETA mode is configured, the system will match the supply scheduled for May 30 to the demand, because May 30 is closest to the demand date of June 1. The on-hand availability of this item can then be used for the next order that is placed.
- First ETA mode: This mode matches the demand against supplies in FIFO (First-In-First-Out) order. For example, consider the scenario described in Closest ETA mode where there was existing on-hand availability of the item, and then additional supplies of the item were scheduled for May 30 and July 30. When first ETA mode is configured, the first demand for that item will be matched against the on-hand availability because this is the supply that was available first.
When a demand is created for an item with custom segment type, the application considers the supply records with the segment type first. If the demand is not satisfied, the remaining unsegmented records are used.
When a demand is created for an item with custom segment type, to fetch the latest inventory picture, the supplies and demands across segments are retrieved. To determine if supply is available to meet either a segmented or unsegmented demand, the application first matches the supplies and demands to get the current inventory picture. Demand created against a custom segment type may get matched to some unsegmented supply.