We are using MRP as the Planning Method and Inventory Planning Exceptions (AM403000) as the purchaser’s daily exception screen.
Our system-wide Stocking Method on AM100000 is Reorder Point.
Here is a representative purchased item:
- Quantity on hand/available for shipment: 4,250
- Open sales-order demand: 17,000
- Open purchase-order supply: 23,500
- Reorder Point: 10,750
- Safety Stock: 0
- Min. Order Qty.: 250
- Lot Size: 250
- Max. Order Qty.: 0
By quantity and date, the existing supply covers the customer demand. The lowest projected balance is approximately 2,500, and the ending projected balance is exactly 10,750. However, AM403000 produces Expedite exceptions against nine PO lines totalling 18,500 units. It appears that MRP is trying to restore the full reorder-point quantity as early as possible, rather than distinguishing between:
- Supply that must be expedited to fulfil an actual customer order on time.
- Supply that is only rebuilding inventory toward the longer-term target.
This makes AM403000 difficult for the purchaser to use: virtually every PO says Expedite, even though the customer orders are already covered and the additional urgency relates to rebuilding the reorder-point balance.
Our desired behaviour is:
- Prioritise actual sales-order demand and identify any PO lines genuinely required to prevent a customer stockout.
- Build inventory gradually toward the target quantity of 10,750.
- Do not tell the purchaser to expedite stock-building supply merely because the current balance is below 10,750.
- Retain the time-phased visibility and useful exceptions provided by AM403000.
We considered changing the item’s Planning Method to Inventory Replenishment and using Min./Max. replenishment. However, our understanding is that the item would then stop participating in MRP regeneration and would no longer produce Expedite/Late/Defer exceptions on AM403000. Prepare Replenishment (IN508000) also appears to be quantity-based rather than a time-phased customer-stockout screen.
We are now wondering whether the intended MRP solution is:
- Keep Planning Method = MRP.
- Set Reorder Point to zero or to a much smaller genuine emergency threshold.
- Use Generate Forecasts (AM502000) or Forecast (AM202000) to represent anticipated future demand.
- Use dependent forecasts so actual sales orders consume the forecast rather than being added to it.
- Use the Demand Time Fence so near-term planning is driven only by actual customer orders.
Questions:
- Is there any native way in MRP to make reorder-point or safety-stock recovery lower priority than actual sales-order demand?
- Is a dependent forecast the intended method for phasing future purchases while prioritising actual orders?
- Can AM502000-generated forecasts be used effectively as dependent forecasts?
- Is using forecasts to build gradually toward a desired stockholding level appropriate, or is that an incorrect use because forecasts represent future consumption rather than a target ending balance?
- Is there any way for an item using Inventory Replenishment to retain genuine customer-stockout or late-supply exceptions on AM403000?
- How are other companies handling this requirement without building a separate Generic Inquiry or customization?
Any guidance or examples of working configurations would be greatly appreciated.
(Note: We do not currently use sales forecasts; target stock levels are recalculated as 1.6 times average monthly sales over the rolling previous 24 months, although AM502000 may be worth exploring.)
