Understanding Availability info in the Sales Info-Pane
Starting from NAV 2013 R2 CU8 or NAV 2013 CU15, we are now providing extended info in the Sales Info-Pane (Sales Order Page). This is to allow user to have clear visibility around item availability when making the right decissions to minimize inventory levels and reduce carrying costs.
Sales Info-Pane is now providing the following info around availability calculation:
- Shipment date: just the shipment date from the active sales line. Nothing more than that. True. But, we need to keep in mind this is the date availability calculation is run against.
- Item availability: this is the result from the availability calculation. It is the projected inventory on the shipment date (Inventory – Gross Requirements + Scheduled Receipts). This defines if we will have available inventory on that date for the current sales orde line.
- Available inventory: the existing stock which is not reserved. This is the portion of the inventory we can consider as available
- Scheduled receipt: existing replenishment (purchase order, production order, …)
- Reserved receipt: same as above but related only to reserved receipts
- Gross requirements: demands (sales order, forecast, service lines, job planning lines, production order components, …)
- Gross reserved: same as above but related only to reserved gross requirements
Thus, this is the info that is provided to the user there which should be used to make decissions together with the “Item Availability by …” views. The info on this Sales Info-Pane provides insight on:
- stock reserved/not reserved
- availability in the shipment date
- other existing demands up to shipment date and how many of these are already reserved
- other existing receipts up to the shipment date and how many are reserved
This info should tell the user how much efficient I am with my reservations. How much stock do I currently have? How much is already reserved? How much of this is being used for any existing demand which comes before or on shipment date? Is there any room for improvement on how long are we holding reserved stock to avoid waiting too much time and minimize carrying costs?
The above together with the “Item availability by …” views should provide tools to make decissions around this. As an example, if we have an availability issue when entering a new sales order, I would encourage user to open “Item Availability by Event” and determine what is the point in time where availability goes negative. On that date, I would check if we have any reserved stock for a demand with later shipment date. This other sales might instead be promised through CTP and existing stock used to account for negative availability.
Lastly but not least, I would like to link this blog entry with an earlier one where I stated the fact reservations should only be done when it is strictly required. Otherwise, we might disturb planning and we might increase inventory levels if reservations are not made on a meaningful business scenario. On this assumption is where user should benefit from this Sales Info-Pane.
