Availability Check & Transfer of Requirements configuration in SD

Availability Check & Transfer of Requirements configuration in SD:

When a customer places an order for a material and requests that the material be delivered to him on a specific date. This delivery date can only be confirmed after ensuring the material availability after considering all the inward as well as out ward stock movements.The availability check shall happen and take into account the respective activities that must be carried before a delivery can take place Similarly the procurement department is also to be informed on the quantities which sales require to be able to deliver against the orders received. This information can trigger production orders for manufacture.

If sufficient quantities are not available to cover the requirements, purchase orders, can be created in purchasing on the basis of transfer of requirements planning.The Availability Check and Requirement Transfer help to determine delivery date for a customer.These also help in determining whether the goods are ready or to be produced or to be procured externally.We need to ensure that when availability check fails, i.e., when the requested delivery date cannot be met from the nearest distribution center, then to check in other centers if goods delivery is possible from one of these centers.Another important factor to be taken into account is that some customers might be preferred customers and if availability check fails, provision should be in place to release goods already reserved for some customer order.

Availability Check – Overview

•  Types of Availability Check
•  Scope of the Availability Check
•  Availability Check in Sales Order
•  Control of Availability Check

There are three types of Availability check 

Check on the basis of Available to Promise (ATP) Quantities:

The ATP quantity is calculated from the warehouse stock, the planned inward movements of stock (production orders, purchase orders, planned orders) and the planned outward movements of stock (Sales Orders, deliveries, reservations). This type of check performed dynamically in the transaction. Planned independent requirement are not taken into account here.

Check against product allocation:

Product allocation facilitates period-based distribution of products for certain customers or regions. This type of check is useful in a cases, for example, the production is very low, customer requirement is high.

Check against planning:

The check against planning is performed against independent requirements which are usually created for an ‘anonymous’ market rather than being customer specific.

Scope of the Availability Check:

The following elements can be included in the availability check:

• Stock: Safety stock, Stock in transfer, Stock in quality inspection, blocked stock.
• Inward movement of goods: Purchase orders, Purchase requisitions, Planned orders, and Production orders
• Outward movement of goods: Reservations, Dependent reservations and requirements, sales and delivery requirements

Availability Check:

When you create an order, the system determines the required material availability date on the basis of the customer’s requested delivery date. On this date you must begin picking, packing and loading the goods. Therefore this is the date of significance for requirements planning on which the availability check should be checked.

The following data is required for determining this date:

• Route from the shipping point to the ship to party.
• Shipping point from which the goods are issued.
• Loading group from the material master record.
• Weight group determined from the order using the order quantity.
• Control of Availability Check.

The control features specific to Sales and Distribution are:

1. Checking group: It controls whether the system is to create individual or collective requirements in sales and shipping processing. The checking group can also be used to deactivate the availability check. It is proposed in the material master record on the basis of the material type and the plant, and copied into the sales documents

2. Checking Rule: The use of checking rule to control the scope of the availability check for each transaction in sales and distribution. You also specify the check should including or excluding replenishment lead time

3. Schedule line category: Schedule line category controls whether an availability check and transfer of requirements should be carried out in the sales documents

4. Delivery item category: The delivery item category can be used to control whether an availability check takes place in deliveries.

Prerequisites for Availability Check:

• Requirement Classes

Menu Path: IMGà Sales & Distributionà Basic Functionsàl Availability Check & TORà TOR à Define Requirement Classes

The availability check must be switched on at the requirements class level

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• Schedule line category level

In order to have availability check in the sales document, the indicator must be set at the schedule line category level.

Menu Path: Display IMGà Sales & Distributionà Salesà Sales Documentsà Schedule Linesà Define Schedule Line Categories