Module: Administration of suppliers¶

Executive summary¶

The module administers basic properties of a supplier, such as lead time, ordering period, ordering calendars and delivery schedule.

The impulse for the present module comes from the ERP systems: such information are either missing completely, or are not kept up-to-date (since ERP does not lend itself to edit and administer such information in a convenient way).

Administration of suppliers enables you to administer properties of suppliers; it is exception-based system (for products, suppliers and warehouses).

The administration of suppliers can create exceptions even for a defined period (e.g. unavailability of suppliers, holidays,…).

Functional description¶

Work with administration of suppliers¶

The following example shows administration of suppliers from a DEMO version:

As mentioned in the introduction, the administration is exception-based. The supreme rule is Global settings, everything under just inherits. Right below, exceptions for products groups are displayed.

Working with rules¶

To work with the rules, use the button on the left side of the table, that enables you to:

Pencil icon: edit the current rule.
Cross: delete the current rule.
Green up/down arrows: change priority of individual rules. As a rule, the item at the highest level in a given branch has the highest priority.
Triangle with a green arrow: create an exception to the rule in a given row.
Calendar with a green arrow: create a time exception to the rule in that row.

Next to buttons, there are checkboxes that disable individual rules without need to delete the rule (skip the rule).

Data editable in administration of suppliers¶

Any (and all) fields in the administration can be disabled in the settings - this means that the form can be maximally simplified to fit the precise needs of the user.

To each value, there is a checkbox. If not checked, the settings are adopted from the upper level. If it is checked, the actual setting at the given level can be rewritten.

The exception applies for

Group of suppliers: choose a particular supplier or a preselected group of suppliers (for a description, see the section: Setting a joint group of suppliers)
Group of warehouses: choose a particular warehouse or a preselected group of warehouses (for a description, see the section: Setting a joint group of warehouses)
Group of products: choose from a preselected group of products (for a description, see the section: Setting a joint group of products)

All other settings apply to stock items that match an intersection of these settings.

** Ordering Period **

Min. period: how frequently must the product be ordered. Min. (minimum) indicates that the ordering period can – under certain circumstances – be extended. For example, if Monday is the ordering day, and if the ordering period is set at 3 days, naturally, there is a mismatch and the ordering period is extended to 7 days.
BS ordering period: a period for computing base stock (for details, see the module Base stock).
SS ordering period: a period for computing safety stock (for details, see the module Safety stock).

Lead time

Lead time: delivery time of a supplier.
BS lead time: delivery time of a supplier for calculating base stock.
Ignore variability: for a given product group, the safety stock segment is ignored, if it is influenced by uncertainty of supplier’s lead time. See the module Base stock.

Product’s ordering limits

Via this setting, you can jointly set minimum order quantity or order set for all combinations of product / supplier from the same group. This limit is applied to each product separately.

Ordering days

You can adjust the ordering and delivery days for creating orders.

There are several options for setting ordering and delivery days. In the initial menu, you can choose among the three basic options.

Before we get to specific orders, it is important to notice that the Planning Wizard system has two more functionalities that restrict ordering and delivery days:

Working week for ordering and delivery days: there is a global setting for the whole STOCK, in which you can set days of a working week (separately for working and delivery days) as
1. MONDAY - FRIDAY
2. MONDAY-SATURDAY
3. MONDAY-SUNDAY
Module: Holidays: globally, or for individual warehouses and groups of warehouses, a particular day can be set as a holiday. For each holiday, you specify whether deliveries are allowed or not.

Days in week

The setting is best for lead times and ordering periods between 0 – 14 days.
You can distinguish even and odd weeks.
If you do not select a day, it then means that there is no limitation for ordering, thus a delivery can occur on any day of the week (of course, with the exception of non-ordering holidays and days of the week).
By ticking a particular day, ordering on that day is enabled.
If you tick more days, all of them are equal and on all of them, ordering is enabled.
If you do not select a delivery date, it is automatically computed according to the lead time specified in calendar (non-working) days. If you choose a delivery date, then it is fixed, regardless of the lead time.
To the delivery days, you can set additional attributes in the right column: notice that these attributes are used as a condition “And at the same time.” Hence, if you choose - say - Ordering only on Monday and the first day of a month is Tuesday, the order is not executed. Therefore, it is advisable to use attributes in the right column so that you leave all the checkboxes (for days in the left column) unchecked.

Days in month

The setting is particularly suitable for ordering periods of approximately 30-day and for delivery periods greater than 14 days and shorter than 2 months.
By ticking particular days, you make these days ordering days of the month.
The particular setting (at the picture above) shows that the ordering days are the 2nd and 16th of the month. These days are equivalent. Suppose now that an ordering period is 30 days and there is an exception for the supplier. Typically, then, the first half of goods is ordered from the supplier on the 2nd and the second half on the 16th. But since an order lasts for a month, the same goods will be ordered again only on the same date next month.

Fixed ordering period

A fixed ordering period serves best long lead times and long ordering periods (over 30 days).
It is best suited for scenarios as this: we wish to order every 40 days (for Min. period = 40 days). You enter a date and from this date, an order is created every 40 days.
If no day of a week is selected, an arbitrary one is chosen.
If, say, Wed is the chosen ordering day, it is then always WEDNESDAY closest to the 40 days ordering period that is chosen as the ordering day. If several days are possible ordering days (more than one day in the month are ticked off), the ordering day is then the one closest to the ordering period’s “beginning + x times 40 days”.

Adding time-limited exceptions¶

Administration of time-limited exceptions has a window very similar to the administration of exceptions, but there are far fewer supported options.

First of all, the most important part is to select a period for which the exception is applicable.

When selecting an exception for ordering time, all ordering days in the given period are canceled and the specified ordering days are valid for the given period.

When selecting an exception for lead time, all delivery days in the given period are canceled and the specified delivery days are valid for the given period.

For the given exception, you can change the ordering delivery period and lead time.

A motivation behind creating an exception is to create new ordering days. Therefore, the checkbox Date of ordering period is always checked.

For Time-limited exceptions, only Days in week can be selected; Days in month and Fixed ordering period are not supported.

If in the given ordering period, you do not want to order at all, check the box “Do not order in the period”.

If no ordering and delivery days are selected, it means that orders can be created anytime.

If you tick off just an ordering day, but a delivery day is left blank, delivery is managed by the (checkbox) lead time; the lead time is either the one changed for exceptions, or the default one.

If you fill both the ordering and delivery dates, a precise order pair (order / delivery) valid for the given period is thus created.

Rewriting rules and exceptions in combination with SIDI¶

The graphical interface has the following hierarchy:

SIDI -> Global settings in the administration of suppliers -> Exceptions in the administration of suppliers.

Each rule in the administration of suppliers can be set as “Use superior”. For example, suppose that an ordering period of a suppliers A is set as 10 days and in the global settings, it is set “Use superior”, then the ordering period is 10 days. However, if we make an exception for the supplier A and set the ordering period for the supplier A as 20 days, the last period is an exception and it is thus used.

Let us look at specific examples of administration. In the following table, you see an example of GUI administration.

The global setting is valid for all suppliers. Subsequently, exceptions from the global settings are set. If there is – say – in the column “Period” a displayed value in bold in a particular row, then the ‘bold’ value overrides the setting value. If not (bold value in a row appears), then the value is taken from the parent settings. You can see that only some exemptions may be overridden, others may not.

Some exceptions can overlap (e.g., an exception for White yoghurt and Yoghurt can be at the same level, it is the user who defines it). Therefore, it must be clear which exception prevails. As a rule, the exceptions that are positioned deeper are higher in the hierarchy. Absolute priority in the entire subordinate hierarchy of products have time-limited exceptions.

To get an overview, at a screenshot, every line has a number that codes the exception’s priority. Setting with the highest number overrides all overlapping settings.

Groups over ordering properties¶

In order to simplify setting of suppliers properties – and to minimize the number of rules –, it is possible to enter the settings for an entire group of suppliers, warehouses and products.

Groups of suppliers¶

In the table, you see a list of created groups, they can be edited or deleted. Also, new groups can be created.

Groups of warehouses¶

In the table, you see a list of created groups, they can be edited or deleted. Also, new groups can be created.

Groups of products¶

In the table, you see a list of created groups, they can be edited or deleted. Also, new groups can be created.

Creating product groups is a bit more complicated, however. All product categories can be seen in the (above shown) administration form, but it is the implementer who must decide which products categories are the most important ones (and thus should be allowed). The idea must be to keep the form transparent.

Suppose the user works with the product group “Group A” and suppose further that a new product needs to be added into the product group. Automatically, then, all the properties of the products in the Group A are now also being applied to the new product.

If there is a choice between several product categories (eg., Category 1 and Subcategory 1) and the user selects all of them, the resulting properties are an intersection of the properties of those selected categories.

If the user selects a category and some products, only those items of the products are selected that are in the product categories as well.