Advanced Inventory

Extend Your Inventory Control

Advanced Inventory Management is the stepping stone between Inventory Management and Warehouse Management. The main difference between Inventory and Warehouse Management is that with Inventory you tell Answer what you have done, with Warehousing it tells you what to do, based on user defined rules.

Advanced Inventory Management adopts certain of these rules based activities and offers them in a non Warehouse Managed environment providing the flexibility of Inventory with the tighter control of Warehouse Management.

As an integral component of Answer Enterprise, Advanced Inventory Management integrates with Inventory Management, Warehouse Management, Purchasing and Sales Order Processing modules to ensure a seamless operation across the whole of your business.

Tighter control of stock for Customers

Advanced Inventory Management provides two techniques to enable tighter control over which Customers get what stock.

Product Thresholds are rules to determine who gets the remaining stock when that stock falls below a nominated stock threshold level. Product Thresholds can be defined for an effectivity period for a Part. The Threshold quantity is defined as well as the Customers or Customer Subsets who are entitled to the stock. This ensures that when stock of that part falls below that threshold quantity only the Customers listed are entitled to that stock. Rules can also be defined to specify splitting methods, maximum percentages and/or quantities allowed by Customer.

In a similar manner, Allocation Thresholds will determine how much of the current stock, i.e. what percentage can be allocated to individual Sales Order lines.

General Reservation provides the ability to reserve stock for a Customer or group of Customers, in advance of receiving their Sales Order. The stock is reserved at the Part/Lot/Pallet level to ensure the correct stock is allocated to the Customers Sales Order, when it arrives. This could be for any reason - new pallet configurations, label changes, new packaging, build up for product launch, reduced quality, etc. General Reservations can be created for any period of effectivity. Once defined when the Sales Order arrives the option is available to either auto assign from the General reservation or manually assign. Other Customers cannot access the reserved stock until it expires it’s effectivity period.

These techniques ensure your key Customers always get the stock that you promised.

Pre-Notification of Supplier Deliveries

Pre-Notification was a facility that was originally only available in Warehouse Management. Now Advanced Inventory provides the facility to build supplier Pre-Notifications, sometimes referred to as Advanced Shipping Notices, ASN, in advance of the goods being delivered where Purchase Orders, Parts, Quantities, Lots, Master Lots, Supplier Lot Numbers, Inventory Statuses, Dates, etc can be record in advance, if supplied. Pre0Notification details can be built over a period of time prior to delivery and ensure simpler booking in and receiving options when the goods arrive.

Delivery Slot Bookings

Delivery Slot booking allow for greater control over deliveries into your warehouse, ensuring more efficient utilisation of goods in staff and the efficient use of the receiving area/zone.

Various Delivery slots and calendars can be created for each receiving zone/area and subsequent booking can be made for Supplier deliveries coming into the various zones. These bookings can then be used to drive the receipting process.

Work Order Allocation/Issuing Advanced Inventory provides the ability to facilitate a Blending/Mixing Workbench approach to the allocation and Issuing of Raw Materials/Components to Work Order/Schedules, based upon Quality Management test results.

MRO/Repair Order Workbench

This provides a central point for the processing of MRO (Manufacture, Repair and Overhaul) items or items which are being returned for refurbishment. This single central point enables the straight forward creation of:

• Customer Pick Up/Return
• Supply of Replacement or Refurbish existing items
• Customer Return via a no cost Purchase Order or via a formal Customer Return
• Provide Quotation for Investigation, Original Past Sale, Rebuild, Refurbishment, Replacement etc
• Provide easy to use work order/schedule creation process
• Provide easy to use and track Sales Order process for each task in the overhaul MRO process

Track Warranty details and Lot History with ease.

Fully integrated with all other Answer Enterprise modules.

Returnable Asset Tracking

This provides a basic facility to manage Returnable Assets such as Pallets, Cages, Dolavs etc. This enables:

• The definition of the Returnable Asset
• The Stock Processing associated with Purchase Orders, Sales Orders and more for the Returnable Asset

The Returnable Asset's inventory position can be enquired upon at any point in time using the standard Answer enquiries.

Key Features Extended Product Definition Delivery Slot Bookings Product Thresholds Allocation Thresholds General Reservations Pre-Notification Delivery Slot Bookings MRO/Repair Order Workbench Returnable Asset Tracking Inventory Replenishment

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