Availability Check & TORPURPOSE

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

USE

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

Terminology

Schedule line in a sales order contains information about the quantities of amaterial ordered by the customer and the corresponding delivery date requested by the customer for delivering the material.

The delivery date quoted by the customer is called the customer-requested delivery date.

Together with the delivery quantity requested by customer for such a date, the term used is material requirement. This information is transferred to MRP using the transfer of requirements (TOR). You can transfer requirements either individually or collectively.An individual requirement transfers the material demand for each scheduleline to MRP, whereas a collective requirement transfers summarized data on a daily or weekly basis to MRP.

Types of Availability Check

There are three types of availability checks:

Check against available-to-promise quantities

Check against product allocation

Check against planning

Check Based on Available-to-Promise Quantities

This check considers the currently available stock and also the stock that will be available in the near future for availability check calculations. In equation form, this can be depicted as follows:

Check against ATP = Available stock + Future receipts – Future issues

Where Available stock refers to the stock available in hand at the delivering plant/warehouse.

Future receipts represent all the inward movement of goods that can addstock in the delivering plant/warehouse. Purchase order, production orderand stock transfer order are a few examples of documents that trigger inwardmovement of stock.

Future issues are all the outward movement of goods that can lead to theconsumption of stock from the delivering plant/warehouse. Sales orders,deliveries, stock transfer orders, and assembly orders

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.

Types of Availability Check

How the Availability Check Process Works

Schedule line confirmation = Material availability date + Pick/pack time + Lead time for transportation planning + Loading time + Transit time

Material availability date (MAD)Date on which the requested quantities for the material should be available to meet the customer-requested delivery date.

system determines the material availability date by calculating backward from the customer-requested delivery date and subtracting the delivering plant/warehouse processing time (pick/pack time, lead time for transportation planning, loading time) and transit time. This process is called backward scheduling.

system determines the material availability date on which the requested quantities of material are available or will be available, it starts calculating forward and adding the time for pick/pack, transportation planning, loading, and transit to the material availability date and proposes or confirms the final date thus calculated as the confirmed schedule line date on the order. This process is called forward scheduling.

Complete Delivery and Availability Check

Availability check in a complete delivery scenario with material availability date already past

Availability check in a partial delivery scenario

Availability check in a one-time delivery scenario

Customizing the Availability Check and Transfer of Requirements

Control of TOR

Requirements Class: The requirements class contains all control features for planning. In addition, it is specified at a global level whether an availability check is to take place for the material in the sales and distribution documents on the basis of the ATP quantity (ATP = available to promise) and whether requirements are to be passed on

Requirements type: The requirements are identified by the requirements type. The requirements type refers to the requirements class and its control features

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

Checking group: It controls whether the system is to create individual or collective requirements in sales and shipping processing.

Control of Availability Check

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

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

Schedule line category: Schedule line category controls whether an availability check and transfer of requirements should be carried out in the sales documents Delivery item category: The delivery item category can be used to control whether an availability check takes place in deliveries.