A customer schedule is a method of managing repetitive demands as forecasts or actual demands for specified periods. It is a short-term or long-term plan or a call-off comprises of information such as customer details, delivery address, sales parts, quantities, due dates, etc. Customer schedules are typically received via EDI or MHS at the supplier's site as incoming customer schedules. Incoming customer schedules will then be converted to customer schedules and subjected to undergo further procedures in the work flow.
Customer schedules are governed by a long-term contract which comprises of policies between the customer and the supplier. This contract is defined as the customer schedule agreement. A customer schedule agreement consists of demanded parts which are also defined as customer schedule agreement parts.
The customer schedule process can be proceeded as plan schedules or call-off schedules. A plan schedule is a long-term predicted demand used for planning purposes whereas a call-off schedule is considered as a short-term shipping instruction for delivery purposes. However both types of requirements can be fulfilled by using call-off or plan schedules individually as well.
Customer Schedule workflow passes through different states such as Reconcile, Tolerance Check, Approve and Release. Customer schedules are initiated in Entered status. The demands will be scheduled according to the delivery durations, due quantities, line type, etc. Customer schedules can also be compared with previously released or superseded schedules in order to view the quantity deviations. You can view the previous call-off or plan schedule from the current schedule. You can also copy the previous schedule or a selected schedule to the current schedule. All the information regarding the customer's previous receipts can also be viewed while initiating customer schedules.
JIT Scheduling is a scheduling approach used to manage and optimize the production and delivery of goods or services. The main goal is to reduce inventory levels and increase efficiency by timing the production and delivery processes so that materials and products arrive exactly when they are needed. This minimizes waste and helps in responding more flexibly to customer demand.
"JIT Schedule" stands for "Just-In-Time Schedule." It can be used for JIS (Just in Sequence) Schedules with custom attributes. Since JIT schedules handle shorter term demands, they can be approved directly without reconciling and checking tolerance.
With the time zone improvement, a badge is introduced for all the date/time attributes. In following pages these attributes are saved in server time zone to the database and displayed in the working time zone of the logged in user
In following pages these attributes are saved in site time zone to the database and also displayed in site time zone:
If one of these fields is entered or edited manually, the
time zone can be temporarily changed for input purposes. After saving the value,
the field is displayed in the default time zone again.
When you hover over
the badge, you can see more details about the time zone and also the corresponding
UTC time.
Customer schedules are generally used to handle high volumes of ever changing order information inflows from repetitive manufacturing partners. IFS/Customer Schedules is a component that can be used as a supplement to IFS/Customer Orders.
In order to use customer schedule workflow, you are required to set up some basic data such as reconciler, approver, tolerance template and schedule line type. However setting up basic data for tolerance template is not required unless bucketed tolerance check option has been used in the agreement.
In order to proceed with customer schedules, it is required to setup sales part cross reference.
It is not allowed to create forecasts for package parts since package parts are not plannable inventory parts.
The demands of customer schedule lines are intended to be covered within specified date ranges. The boundaries of date range are defined by From date and To date stated for each demand when creating schedule lines. When creating customer schedule lines automatically, the To Date is set one second less than the From Date of the next schedule line. Also the last schedule line's To Date will be set equal to the Valid To date of the schedule header with a time stamp of 23:59:59
When converting schedule lines to actual demands, you can use fixed customer orders which are connected to the schedule agreement part or else new customer orders can be created on demand.
If the reference use option in the customer schedule agreement part is set to Use Reference then the relevant reconciliation option should be set to No Reconcile as the schedule will follow the reference data which is received in the incoming customer schedule or specified in the customer schedule when creating actual demands or forecast demands.
In order to proceed with schedule work flow, it is necessary to set up a customer schedule agreement as well as a customer schedule agreement part. The contract defaults will be specified under agreement defaults and tolerance check defaults in the customer schedule agreement. The parts which are included in the contact will be defined under customer parts in the customer schedule agreement. The agreement conditions defined under the customer schedule agreement will be considered as default terms when customer schedule agreement parts are connected to a schedule agreement. These default settings can be changed in the customer schedule agreement part according to your requirements. However, priority is given to the conditions defined in the customer schedule agreement part over the customer schedule agreement.
Agreement defaults contain workflow options and history settings. The workflow options specify the reconciliation option to be used in the schedule agreement, consideration of past due quantities during reconciliation, use of manual or automatic methods in tolerance checking approval and release methods, the delivery authorization method to be used and reference data handling in the incoming customer schedule and customer schedules. They also consist of information such as the plan consume options, plan forecast options and forecast spread options. Tolerance check defaults contain the desired tolerance check method to be used in determining customer schedule variances. Schedule agreement parts contain some additional information such as validity periods of the agreements and cumulative quantity delivered to customers during specified periods. Schedule agreement parts can also be used to keep records on the highest cumulative quantity that ever existed on a released schedule as well.
A customer schedule agreement is initiated in Planned status. Schedule agreements can also include different stages such as Active, Negotiate, Open or Close. Any status change made on a schedule agreement will be applied on the schedule agreement parts as well.
A line type is mandatory for each customer schedule line.
Option 1: Line types are communicated by customer A in each schedule explicitly and then entered at each schedule line (manually or as part of the incoming EDI message)
Option 2: Line types are not communicated by customer B,
but with knowledge about the line types which have to be set depending on temporal
horizons a Customer Schedule Template can be created.
Example:
Horizon 1: in first 14 days a line type "SHI" (Shipment Authorization) shall be used
Horizon 2: in next 6 weeks a line type "DIS" (Disposition Authorization), but without shipment authorization, shall be used
Horizon 3: for next 10 months a line type "INF" (Information Only) shall be used
Resulting template should have this structure:
Template
ID: e.g.,Template customer B
|
Horizon No |
Period Size |
Period Unit |
Line Type |
|
1 |
14 |
Days |
SHI |
|
2 |
6 |
Weeks |
DIS |
|
3 |
10 |
Months |
INF |
Period Unit can be set to Days, Weeks and Months. A horizon
with Days must not follow Weeks' or Months' demand and a horizon with Weeks
must not follow Months' demand.
This Template ID “Template Customer B”
is then either set up at the relevant CSAs (customer schedule agreements) and
inherited into each associated CSAP (customer schedule agreement part) or entered
directly at the relevant CSAPs. Templates can be defined separately for schedule
types Plan and Call-off.
When creating a customer schedule, the template
is inherited from the respective CSAP.
If a customer schedule line without
Line Type is saved (manually entered customer schedule lines or automatically
entered via EDI incoming customer schedule), the line type is retrieved automatically
via the template horizons. Reference dates for the line types
determination are Delivery Date/From Date on line
level and Customer’s Created Date on header level.
It is important to know that,
According to ISO-6801, the week starts on Monday, hence, the "Days" horizon prior to the first "Weeks" horizon could be extended until the "Weeks" horizon starts.
Month starts on its first day, therefore the previous "Weeks" or "Days" horizon prior to the first "Months" horizon may be extended accordingly by some days until the "Months" horizon starts.
Either the customer communicates the date when the schedule was created there (written on the document or part of the EDI message) or IFS makes a best estimate as minimum date of (“Customer’s Approved Date” if given, “Valid From” date of the schedule header, site date at time of schedule creation in IFS).
A reconciler is an authorized individual or a group that conducts analysis of the recent deliveries and schedule data with the current schedule and changes the status of the customer schedule status from Entered to Reconciled.
Reconciliation is the process of aligning schedule differences of supplier deliveries and customer receipts. The main objective of reconciliation is to confirm whether the actual deliveries satisfy the customer’s requirement. Performing analysis of the recent deliveries and schedule data with the current schedule is an essential task during reconciliation. If, for some reason, it fails to satisfy the conditions defined in the agreement, the reconciliation will fail and the customer schedule status will be changed to Reconcile Failed.
Reconciliation can also be performed by taking past due quantities into account. However, the reconciliation option will not be used if the Customer Schedule receives any reference information. A Reconciler can have more than one user IDs.
When customer schedule agreement part reconcile option is either set to Use Cumulative Quantity or Use Delivery Note and Cum Qty, the reconcile process is based on the Cum Delivered Quantity. The Cum Delivered Qty can be reset manually or by using the Cumulative Delivered Quantity Reset command from CSAP header, from selected CSAPs overview table, from selected CSAPs in the CSA Customer Parts tab or by a Batch Job.
Business contracts often include allowable schedule variances with potential penalties for the customer, if violated. The tolerance check is an optional step in the flow but is a key feature of IFS/Customer Schedules. This check provides a way for the supplier to recognize and, if necessary, present actual facts and figures associated with any schedule variance violations. Tolerance checks can be performed manually or automatically depending on the conditions defined in the customer schedule agreement part.
Tolerance checks can be performed using:
Cumulative Tolerance Check Options
Using Bucketed Tolerance Check Options
While performing a cumulative tolerance check, the cumulative percentage deviation is calculated for each day during the common periods of the compared schedules in plan to plan, call-off to plan, call-off to call-off, or cumulative call-off to plan combinations. The cumulative tolerance check will fail if any instance found where the percentage cumulative deviation falls outside the predefined tolerance range.
The time buckets defined in the tolerance template will be used when performing bucketed tolerance check methods. The calculations will be based on the predefined bucket sizes and tolerance ranges. During tolerance check, the quantities of the schedule lines are divided according to the capacities of the time buckets which are then used to calculate the deviation of the particular time bucket in plan to plan, call-off to plan, call-off to call-off, or cumulative call-off to plan combinations.
An approver is an individual or a group that is authorized to approve the customer schedule once it has been reconciled and tolerance checked. Approve option can be performed manually or automatically depending on the approval method selected in the customer schedule agreement part. An approver can have one or more user IDs.
For schedule demands where the line type is Not Delivery Authorized, the schedule lines will be converted to forecast demands during the release process.
For schedule demands where the line type is Delivery Authorized, the following process depends on the parameter Delivery Initiation Point which you can specify for each customer schedule agreement part.
Delivery Initiation Point = Customer Order Line: Delivery Authorized schedule lines will be converted to customer order lines. Deliveries are initiated from these customer order lines. Characteristics of this process are:
Process
Customer order lines of the previously released customer schedule are kept if demand date and quantity in the new schedule are unchanged. For others, the customer order lines of the prevous schedule are cancelled and new customer order lines for the new schedule are created.
The Customer Schedule Merged Lines page is maintained, showing the relation between customer schedule line and customer order line as well as the status or the reason for a release exception.
Possible conflicts when cancelling the previous customer order line (order delivery: at least status partially picked; shipment delivery: at least partially connected to a shipment) must be processed manually. The schedule then is can not be released completely and will change to status Release Exception
Customer order lines can be delivered by order delivery process or by shpiment delivery process
When using the shipment delivery, one shipment line refers to a customer order line.
The delivered customer order line is the invoiceable object
Additional aspects
Schedule line demands are consumed by the customer order line that was created for it and was delivered
An overdelivery is not possible, neither for a specific order line nor for the whole order.
The schedule lines may address different sites
Use this process when References are used on schedule lines, when schedule lines within one schedule should be addressed to different sites or when order delivery is the preferred delivery process
Delivery Initiation Point = Customer Schedule Line: Delivery Authorized schedule lines will be visible in the Available Lines for Shipments page. Characteristics of this process are:
Process
With release of a customer schedule, no customer order lines are created at that point of time. The delivery authorized schedule lines are directly available in the page Available Lines for Shipments. The connectable quantity is already reduced by connected shipments. Shipment lines with connectable quantity = 0 are invisible
Schedule lines of the previous schedule are deleted from the page Available Lines for Shipments
Only the shipment delivery process is supported, no order delivery is possible
When a new shipment line is created based on such a schedule demand, then a matching customer order line is also created in the background. The customer order does not need to be inspected or maintained by the user
After finalising the shipment, the customer order line is the invoiceable object, containing exactly the delivered quantity
Additional aspects
Schedule line demands are always consumed in chronological order when connecting to a shipment
The new schedule will not end up in status Release Exception due to e.g. already planned shipments or partially delivered schedule lines
Overdelivery of specific schedule line demands as well as the sum of all delivery authorized demands is not restricted
The page Customer Schedule Merged Lines is not maintained / is not required in this process
Simultaneous use of references in schedule lines is not possible
All schedule lines must address the same site as well as the same site as the previously released schedule
Use this process when a high flexibility is desired (easy way to increase / decrease shipment connected quantitiies) or when it is required to release a new schedule as quick and smooth as possible without release exceptions and manual interventions
For both options, customer order lines can be created in two ways when releasing schedules. One method is creating customer order lines in customer orders which have been created in advance and have been connected to the customer schedule agreement part in tab Supply. The second method is creating new customer orders on demand. If the delivery initiation point is customer schedule line, then it is mandatory that automatic shipment creation at customer order release is activated in the shipment type of the customer order (create in advance) or of the customer address / site (create on demand)
Once the new schedule is released, the previously released schedule which represents the same schedule type, customer number, customer's part number, delivery address and agreement id will be superseded.
When the release process is performed for a call-off schedule against a plan schedule, forecast consumption is created according to the condition defined for the plan consume option defined in the agreement.