Sourcing configuration

When making sourcing decisions for your products, think about how you would configure the following parameters. This helps you to define your preliminary product sourcing configuration.

1. Are sourcing rules defined?

   Sourcing rules are defined by the Enterprise. You can use this parameter to specify if the Enterprise defines sourcing rules at all. If you ship only from the distribution centers owned by the Enterprise and the Enterprise has only a few distribution centers, you may not need to do any complex sourcing setups. If you set this parameter as "No", Sterling Order Management System Software sources the product from any of the nodes owned by the Enterprise. It uses the optimization logic to pick the appropriate node based on distance and other parameters.

   Note: This functionality has changed from previous releases (5.0 and earlier). In earlier releases, Sterling Order Management System Software was looking for the setup as defined by the Seller organization on the order. There is no backward compatibility provided for this and you need to reconfigure your sourcing rules to achieve the desired functionality.
2. Is inventory information available to the system?

   This parameter is setup for all organizations that can own inventory. This parameter specifies whether or not an organization makes inventory information available to Sterling Order Management System Software. Information can be made available either through the Global Inventory Visibility application or through a real-time interface.

   If you can make inventory information available to the system, you should set this parameter to 'Yes'. This typically results in better sourcing decisions. If such information is not available, you must set this to 'No'.

   Also note that apart from this parameter, Sterling Order Management System Software uses inventory availability as one of the constraints only if the:

   • Seller organization on the order publishes inventory information (this parameter is set to 'Yes')
   • Document type of the order is set to 'read inventory for scheduling'
   • Document type of the order is set to 'update inventory for seller organization'

     If any of the above is not true, Sterling Order Management System Software assumes that an inventory check does not have to be performed at all and the sourcing process does not consider inventory as one of the determining factors. However, other factors such as distance and node priorities are still considered for ship node selection.

3. Is inventory kept externally?

   This parameter is relevant only if the above parameter "Is Inventory information available to the system" is set to "Yes". This parameter specifies if inventory information for the organization is maintained within the Global Inventory Visibility application or is made available through a real-time interface.

   A single distribution group can specify:

   • Nodes for which inventory is kept within the Global Inventory Visibility application.
   • Organizations keeping inventory externally

     When checking for inventory, Sterling Order Management System Software uses this parameter to determine the inventory store and if kept externally, makes a call out to get the product availability.

4. Default distribution node group?

   This parameter defines the default set of nodes or suppliers to consider for sourcing when Sterling Order Management System Software does not find a matching sourcing rule. Note that this parameter is only relevant for the Enterprise setting up the sourcing rules.