SLA-based optimization

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) defines when an order needs to reach the customer. Sterling Intelligent Promising considers days to deliver or SLA to calculate promising and fulfillment decisions.

Note: By default, optimization is based on SLA days of CarrierServiceCode. Contact your IBM representative to enable optimization based on the delivery date and ship date for assignments.

Sterling Intelligent Promising considers days to deliver or SLA to calculate promising and fulfillment decisions.

The commitment is captured in one of the following ways:

carrierServiceCode on the order line
expectedDeliveryDate on the assignments available

When Sterling Intelligent Promising optimizes orders, it considers the SLA or carrierServiceCode as the number of days that determine the delivery timeline, and evaluates all possible combinations to meet that timeline. However, the SLA days are not taken directly as-is to determine the number of days to deliver the order. Instead, the factors like node capacity backlog, node shipping calendar, node shipping cutoff time, and order creation date are used to determine the final number of days to deliver the order.

The node shipping calendar defines which days are considered nonbusiness days at the ship node. For more information, see Node calendar. The node cutoff time defines the start of nonbusiness hours at the shipping node, indicating that the next business day is considered the start of the commitment for that node.

When an order is placed on a business day and before the node cutoff time, the current day is considered the starting point toward the net SLA days calculation. However, when an order is placed on a nonbusiness day or after the node cutoff time on a business day, the next business day is counted toward the net SLA days.

When an order is optimized on a business day and before the node cutoff time, the current day is considered the starting point toward the net SLA calculation. However, when an order is optimized on a nonbusiness day or after the node cutoff time on a business day, the next business day is counted toward the net SLA calculation. The difference in business days from when an order was created to when the order is optimized, drives the net SLA days that remain for the order to be delivered.

See the following table for an example of the SLA days calculation. In this example, the ship node cutoff is every weekday at 14:00:00 EST, and the ship node calendar is configured to consider Saturdays and Sundays as nonbusiness days.

Sample order 1 is being retried for optimization every few hours. The order was placed before the node cutoff time on a business day.

Table 1. Sample order 1
Date	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	SLA days	Difference in business days	Net SLA days
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST 11:00:00 EST				6	0	6
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST 19:00:00 EST				6	1	5
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST –	– 10:00:00 EST			6	1	5
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST –	– 19:00:00 EST			6	1	5
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST –		– 13:00:00 EST		6	1	5
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST –			– 10:00:00 EST	6	1	5
Order date Optimization date	10:00:00 EST –			– 19:00:00 EST	6	2	4

Sample order 2 is being retried for scheduling every day. The order was placed after the node cutoff time on a business day.

Table 2. Sample order 2
Date	Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	SLA days	Difference in business days	Net SLA days
Order date Optimization date	19:00:00 EST 20:00:00 EST					6	0	6
Order date Optimization date	19:00:00 EST –	– 11:00:00 EST				6	0	6
Order date Optimization date	19:00:00 EST –		– 11:00:00 EST			6	0	6
Order date Optimization date	19:00:00 EST –			– 11:00:00 EST		6	0	6
Order date Optimization date	19:00:00 EST –				– 11:00:00 EST	6	1	5