Inventory availability

Inventory availability delivers real-time available-to-sell data for eCommerce and selling channels at both single-node and network levels. It is derived from a combination of supply, demand, reservations, fulfillment options, safety stock, and capacity levels.
The availability is the key driver to ensure that the selling channels capture the correct order quantities and prevent overselling and underselling. It also provides sellable quantity visibility across multiple fulfillment commitment levels that includes sell, schedule, and release.

IBM® Sterling Intelligent Promising simplifies the inventory picture by providing a real-time inventory availability view. You get an insight into the intricate supply and demand processes that are matched in the background across reservations, fulfillment options, and safety stock. By using the inventory availability view, as a fulfillment manager, you understand with confidence, the total quantity available to sell at every stage of the fulfillment process. The process ranges from order capture to schedule, release, and shipping. Also, by using the availability by date feature, you know exactly when items are available.

Inventory availability provides the following key details:
  • Quantity of items that are available to sell at a location.
  • Duration of the availability of items to sell.
  • Item shortages across demand, reservation, and safety stock.
  • Inventory threshold and when that is reached.
In computing inventory availability, Sterling Intelligent Promising considers the following different types of supply
  • On-hand
  • Placed
  • In transit
    • Demand
    • Scheduled
    • Allocated
Each of these different types of supply has a defined priority. For more information, see Matching supply and demand.
Depending on the stage of the fulfillment process, you might need to assess availability by the commitment level. In the availability API, you can specify the following types of availability:
Sell
The amount of inventory that is available for an uncommitted request. For example, the inventory on the product detail page or on the product listing pages on the e-commerce site.
Schedule
The amount of inventory that is available to promise that can be linked to a sales order.
Release
The amount of inventory to release for final packing or shipping at the fulfillment center or store.
Regardless of the availability type, inventory availability provides the following two snapshots:
Current availability
The quantity available today that is also known as on-hand quantity.
Future availability
The quantity that is available at a future date.

Both of these quantities can be tied to in transit and in bound purchase orders.

The following availability types are available:
On-hand
On-hand availability refers to inventory that is in stock currently at a store and available for walk-in, pickup, or shipping. The quantity of inventory is based on the level of commitment. For example, releasing inventory for availability purposes tends to yield a higher number of quantities because it is committed for fulfillment. As a result, the system allows access into lesser committed inventory to minimize back orders.
Future
Future availability refers to inventory that is not yet in stock but is scheduled to arrive at a location. From then, it is considered future inventory. For example, inbound shipments or pre-order items that are available from tomorrow. In Sterling Intelligent Promising, you can place demands against future supplies to provide a fulfillment manager with an estimate of the total inventory that is available to sell in the future.