Defining the Maximum Days' Supply for Products

Define a maximum number of days' supply of a product that your company permits to be maintained in inventory. Defining a maximum number of days' supply keeps your inventory at an efficient level so that you do not keep unnecessary stock in your warehouse.

The system checks whether a product's current maximum days' supply is greater than a limit set for the individual product, buy line, or all products. This check also prevents you from bringing unnecessary stock into your warehouse and moving inventory in quantities greater than what you sell. The system makes this check whenever a product is placed on an sales order, purchase order, transfer order, or inventory adjustment.

The system uses the following calculation to determine the product's projected maximum days' supply:

Product Projected Maximum Days' Supply = Product's projected inventory level (PIL) / Demand per day

You can define maximum days' supply at three levels:

When you add items to a transaction, the system checks the PIL. If an item fails the check, the system warns that you are about to affect inventory levels set to the maximum days' supply limit. The warning displays the item's part number, description, PIL, daily demand, and its projected maximum days' supply. If you have the corresponding PIL override authorization key assigned (AOE.PIL.DAYS.OVRD, POE.PIL.DAYS.OVRD, SOE.PIL.DAYS.OVRD or TOE.PIL.DAYS.OVRD), the message has a Continue (Y/N) prompt. Otherwise, the message prompts you to enter the password of another user who is authorized to override the maximum days' supply limit.

For example, you set the system default for maximum days' supply to be 456. Product A has a daily demand of 0.03 and a PIL of 12. The system calculates that the maximum days' supply is 400. This product is not in violation of the maximum days' supply limit. A purchasing agent attempts to meet a vendor target by manually adding 3 more of Product A to a purchase order. Product A's PIL increases to 15 and its maximum days' supply to 500. The system warns the purchasing agent that including this product on the purchase order in this quantity violates the maximum days' supply limit.

If an item is removed from a transaction, or the transaction is deleted, the system compares the PIL at the time of the removal or deletion to a stored PIL. If the removal or deletion does not make the PIL higher than it was at the time of the addition, no maximum days' supply warning displays.

To define the system default maximum days' supply:

  1. From the System > System Files menu, select Control Maintenance to display the Control Maintenance screen.

  2. In the Keyword field, enter max day supply to display the Maximum Days Supply control maintenance record screen.

  3. In the Br/Tr/All field, enter the branch or territory you want to select. Enter All to select all branches and territories.

  4. For each branch, enter the maximum days' supply that your company permits to be stocked for all products in the warehouse.

Note: We recommend setting the system default to 99999. This causes the system to warn users when they attempt to purchase or transfer nonstock items that have a daily demand of 0.

  1. Press Esc to save changes and exit the screen.

To define the maximum days supply for a product:

  1. From the Files menu, select Product to display the Product Maintenance screen.

  2. Select a product.

  3. Use the Inven hot key to display the Primary Inventory Maintenance screen.

  4. Use the User Controls hot key to display the User Inventory Controls screen.

  5. Use the Hits/Supply hot key to display the Hits Control Maintenance screen.

  6. Use the Hierarchy hot key to select a branch.

Note: Use the Find hot key as necessary to locate a branch that is in the list, but not in the viewable area. Use Alt-Insert to add a branch or territory to the list. The new branch or territory inherits the settings of the previous entry. Use Alt-Delete to remove a branch or territory from the list.

  1. In the Max Days field for a branch or territory, enter the maximum days' supply of the product that your company permits to be stocked in the warehouse.

  2. Set hits control parameters, as needed.

  3. Press Esc to save changes and exit the screen.

See Also:

Forecasting Overview

Setup Requirements for Forecasting

Setting Product User Control Parameters