Automated Sales Order Line Expected Ship Date Updates

REQUIREMENT

A national distributor serving large property and facility managers provides hundreds of thousands of parts and products, maintaining inventory for only those with the most turnover. For most other items sold, it is critical for customers to know when a product on order is expected to ship, and when conditions for supplier shipping and demand priorities change. 

ISSUES

In the past, each procurement manager would spend hours, several times weekly, manually calculating each Sales Order line’s expected ship date. NetSuite’s native Available to Promise solution is also ineffective as it requires manual intervention by inside salespeople, can only provide a one-time estimate based on limited factors, and never updates SO Expected Ship Date based on changes to POs or SOs, which occur frequently.

SOLUTIONS

We designed and built a cost-effective but comprehensive solution that meets all needs, significantly reduces human effort, and benefits customers greatly:

1. An automation runs several times daily to…

   1. Prioritize demand for each unique SKU within all open Sales Orders, based on their Requested Ship Date (independent of Order Date), Quantity and Special Order status

   2. Assess supply for each unique SKU from all open PO lines, based on their Expected Delivery Date and Quantity

   3. Apply Expected Ship Date to each SO line in order of priority, as it is saved. In this case, SO Item quantities are shipped complete, and several business days are added for packing time. In the event there is not enough supply on open POs for a new order’s demand quantity Expected Delivery Date is based on Lead Time for the Preferred Vendor. 

2. Supply managers receive Vendor shipping notifications and are able to apply Expected Delivery Date to many PO lines at once without opening a single transaction.

3. Changes to PO Expected Receipt Dates auto-update SO line’s Expected Ship Date, based on the SO’s position in the queue.

4. Scheduled Email Alerts notify customers of changes to Expected Ship Dates for all open line items