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Inventory Updates in NetSuite 2021.1

2021.1 Inventory |
  • Manage Allocations
    • Projected Available Inventory Balance from the Supply Chain Snapshot
    • Channel Allocations
    • Exclude Predicted Risks
    • Blanket Purchase Orders and Inbound Shipment in the Snapshot
    • New button for Best Location
    • Automatic Numbering in Snapshot
  • Warehouse Management Enhancements
  • Basic Bin Management Enhancement
  • Multi-Book Accounting Support for Allow Partial Receipt Against a Fulfillment in Transfer at Cost
  • Quality Management Enhancements
  • New Pack Station Mobile App
  • Shelf-to-Sheet Count Enhancements
  • FEFO Lot Allocations

Supply Planning

In NetSuite Supply Planning 2021.1, the following enhancements have been made to Supply Planning:

  • You can designate a Master Production Schedule (MPS) or Material Requirements Plan (MRP) for review separately or together in the planning results.
  • The supply planning workbench date-based view enables you to review item and location planning results by period. NetSuite displays cause and effect by period and trends for the item and location.
  • The High Impact Late Demand threshold uses supply planning workbench logic to set a threshold for an items and locations. If the late demand threshold is exceeded, a color highlights the issue in the supply planning workbench.
  • Improved item supply planning workbench search works with other item filters to refine item search results. if you enter a partial item name, the search results include all matching items. Entering a full item returns the specific item.
  • Improved Saved Search in the planning repository data and supply planning results data enables you to run adhoc reports and analyses.
  • Supply Planning enables you to schedule a planning repository refresh, after which you can launch one or more supply plans.
  • The Auto-Approve Supply Change Orders system preference enables you to bypass secondary approvals when you release changes to existing supply orders from the supply planning workbench.
  • REST, web services, and CSV Import are now available for planning data.
  • You can now use blanket purchase orders transactions in the supply planning process. Supply Allocation Enhancements

Manage Allocations

The NetSuite 2021.1 Order Management Dashboard provides a single work space where you can find the orders that require immediate attention. It also provides direct access to the allocation management tools that you can use react to those orders. The dashboard helps managers who have a comprehensive view of the allocation of supplies and the resulting customer service and financial outcomes. The dashboard provides access to the following portlets:

  • Supply Allocation and Sales Channel Allocation – shortcuts to pages where you can allocate and re- allocate supplies to demand.
  • Order Allocation KPI Scorecard – displays key sales, customer service, and the following inventory management performance indicators:
    • Average inventory value
    • Current inventory value
    • Inventory turnover
    • Sales turnover value
    • Fill rate This metric measures how well sales orders are being fulfilled complete and on time.
  • The Order Allocation Alerts portlet identifies allocation exceptions that need immediate attention.
  • After you enable the Sales Channel allocation feature, the Order Operations by Channel portlet provides an overview of supply allocations for each sales channel.
  • The Allocation Automation Status portlet monitors the automated background processes of supply allocation. All portlets are customizable by the NetSuite dashboard and saved search customization tools. Projected Available Inventory Balance from the Supply Chain

Snapshot

The NetSuite 2021.1, the Supply Planning Snapshot includes Allocated Quantity in snapshot calculations. This more accurate future quantity availability information is based on allocations in conjunction with the existing projected inventory balance. When the supply allocation feature is enabled it displays the following new columns:

  • Allocated Demand – Supply Lines display current inventory that is allocated to future demand.
  • Allocated Supply – Demand Lines display the quantity that is fulfilled by future supply or current inventory.
  • Available Inventory Balance – dDisplays the total unallocated supplies and unallocated demands. Blanket Purchase Orders and Inbound Shipment in the

Snapshot

Including Blanket Purchase Order and Inbound Shipment as sources of supply improves the accuracy of the the Supply Chain Snapshot results.

Blanket purchase order schedules represent a forecasted requirement to vendors. It serves as an early

indication for the vendor to prepare for production. When the blanket purchase order schedules a line item, it creates a purchase order and replaces the schedule line item on the snapshot.

Inbound shipments represent a shipping consignment between the trading partners, with a list of items

on the purchase order. In NetSuite, you can create multiple inbound shipments against each purchase order line, each with its own delivery date and receiving location. The supply chain snapshot includes the scheduled line items from blanket purchase orders, the purchase orders, and related inbound shipments. This ensures that the supplied quantities across these sources of supply are consistently accounted for.

Channel Allocations

The Sales Channel Allocation feature now enables planners to set inventory and future supplies aside to sales orders in these channels. You can enable Sales Channel Allocations separately on top of the supply allocation feature. After you enable sales channel allocation, you can undertake the following activities :

  • Track sales and operations activities by sales channel (lead to order and order to cash).
  • From the Order Operations by Channel portlet, you can see and review the following:
    • potential revenue to be captured by channel
    • potential channel profit by fulfilling the order
    • operational performance to capture profit
  • Add channels to generate reports that displays sales improvements and operational data.
  • Create order reservations to set inventories and future supplies aside for channels based on channel priorities.
  • Allocate channel sales orders based on channel reservations.
  • Manage allocation exceptions by channel.
  • Rearrange reservations when market priorities change.

Exclude Predicted Risks

After you enable the Supply Chain Control Tower, the purchase order, transfer order, and sales order forms display the Exclude From Predicted Risk custom field. If you check the Exclude from Predicted Risk box on the transaction line of an atypical order, the line is not included in the predicted risk calculations. This means that the system ignores the order line during the supply chain risk prediction model training and validation.

Predicted Risk Vendor Delivery Performance

After you enable Supply Chain Predicted Risk, NetSuite automatically performs a vendor performance analysis based on the transaction history. It then recalculates the predicted risk of early or late delivery for each vendor. You can monitor the results of the vendor performance analysis on the Vendor Performance Calculation page. You can now mark the vendors for implementation. The implementation populates the vendor record Predicted Days Early/Late and Predicted Risk Confidence fields.

New button for Best Location

The best location on the Earliest Availability popup window displays more order promising information. This information is based on earliest availability across multiple locations for each required order item.

  • The Earliest Availability link appears in the Supply Required By Date column. When you click the link, the Earliest Availability popup window appears to display the following order line attributes:
    • Item
    • Quantity
    • Required date
    • Allocation strategy
    • Location
  • When you enable Automatic Location Assignment, click the Assign Location button on the Earliest Availability popup window to determine the best location.
  • NetSuite calculates the best location based on availability and the rules of automatic location assignment configuration for the selected sales order.

Automatic Numbering in Snapshot

The new automatic numbering support for snapshot simulation helps identify snapshot simulations to review the projected inventory balance. You can customize automatic numbering logic to suit your company’s need. After you enable Supply Chain Control Tower:

  • You can set up custom automatic numbering patterns for simulations on the supply chain snapshot.
  • The system applies automatic numbering logic to manual and auto generated simulations.
  • The update option enables you to apply automatic numbering to existing simulations.

Transfer Orders can Receive Reallocation Recommendations

When a transfer order line has late allocation or no allocation, the order line displays a Reallocate link to the Reallocate Order Item page. The transfer order line shows up as target order and the system can compute recommendations to re- allocate supplies from other orders. After you accept a recommendation, the Transfer Order is no longer considered late. The Expected Ship Date equals the Supply Require By Date.

Warehouse Management Enhancements

Note: Use of the Warehouse Management feature requires that you install the SCM Mobile and Oracle NetSuite WMS SuiteApps. See the help topic Installing the NetSuite WMS SuiteApps.

Inbound Processing Enhancements

the ability to process cart moves for received items on a mobile device. You can track the quantity, bin, and cart details as you move inventory in carts from the staging bin location. When you transfer items from the cart to a storage location, you can perform a full or partial putaway. When you select the Putaway option on the Receiving mobile page, NetSuite WMS now displays the two putaway options: Cart Moves and Bin Putaway.

  • Status Change for Bin Putaway - If you use the Inventory Status feature and you want to perform a bin putaway, you can now change the inventory status of received items. For more information, see or Item Putaway.

Ability to Change the Inventory Status

If you use the Inventory Status feature, you can change the inventory status of items using your mobile device. You can select any of the statuses available on your account. The Inventory mobile page now displays the Change Inventory Status option. See the help topic Changing the Inventory Status of Items. Outbound Processing Enhancements

New Wave Release Capabilities

Picking Type field. It generates a single pick task that contains the consolidated ordered quantity for

the same regular inventory or lot item across all orders in the wave. See the help topic Creating Wave Transactions.

On a mobile device, you can select the Multi-Order Picking option to process wave transactions for

the Bulk Order picking type. NetSuite WMS automatically distributes picked quantities across orders included in the wave. For set up information, see New WMS System Rules.

  • Scheduled Wave Release – NetSuite WMS now provides the ability to schedule the release of wave transactions for sales or transfer orders. It submits a job that generates and releases a wave transaction for a maximum of 10,000 order lines across all orders. You can filter the orders you want to include in a wave and set the schedule of the release to your warehouse. See the help topic Creating a Wave Release Schedule.
  • Releasing Waves from a Mobile Device – On a mobile device, you can generate and release waves for single orders. The Single Order Picking page now displays the following options: Unreleased Orders and Released Orders. When you select the Unreleased Orders option, you can choose the orders to include and release in a wave transaction. See the help topic Picking Items for Single Orders.

New WMS System Rules

NetSuite WMS provides the following system rules that modify the picking and staging process on a mobile device:

  • Enable bulk picking of large pick tasks – Automatically creates and submits a bulk processing job for pick tasks that exceed 50 pick task lines, by default. This rule applies to the new Bulk Order Picking process only. See New Wave Release Capabilities.
  • Enable bulk staging of large pick tasks – Automatically creates and submits a bulk processing job for pick tasks that exceed 25 pick task lines, by default. This rule applies to Single Order, Multi-Order, and Bulk Order picking. Based on your business requirements and number of SuiteCloud processors, you can change the default pick task line limit to any number from 1 to 125. If you inactivate any of these system rules, NetSuite WMS adjusts the default limit to 125 pick task lines. It creates bulk processing jobs only for pick tasks that exceed this limit. However, you may observe a slowness in performance on your mobile device when you process large pick tasks. For more information, see the help topic System Rules for NetSuite WMS.

Pick Reversal on Mobile Devices

Prior to NetSuite 2021.1, you can reverse pick tasks using the NetSuite user interface. Now, you can

perform pick task reversals through your mobile device. NetSuite WMS updates the records associated with the reversed pick tasks. See the help topic Pick Task Reversal.

Mobile Printing Enhancements

You can configure Mobile Printing to automatically print labels after you enter the quantity of an item you are processing. You can set up multiple labels for automatic printing and specify the print sequence or priority. Automatic printing follows your default mobile printing and print sequence configuration. See the help topic Mobile Printing for NetSuite WMS.

Tally Scanning Updates

Aside from the outbound Order Picking process, Tally Scanning now supports the Cart Moves and Work

Order Picking mobile processes. When you scan an item, NetSuite WMS increments the processed quantity by 1. The updated Tally Scanning flow reduces manual steps for the supported mobile processes. It includes automatic page forwarding when you have no remaining items to scan and lot number or item scanning on the same page. To set up Tally Scanning, see the help topic System Rules for NetSuite WMS.

Support for the New Pack Station Mobile App

In NetSuite 2021.1, you can access the Pack Station mobile app when you install the new Pack Station

SuiteApp. This mobile app enables carton and pallet packing through a kiosk device. After you pick and

stage outbound orders, packers can pack them into cartons and transfer packed cartons onto pallets. See New Pack Station Mobile App.

Basic Bin Management Enhancement

Previous versions of Basic Bin Management enabled you to set partial quantities only for multiple lot

numbers in a line item of a transaction. It automatically assigned the full quantity to a single lot number in the line item. In NetSuite 2021.1, Basic Bin Management lets you to allocate a partial quantity even to a single lot number in a line item. The line item displays the lot number in the format, Lot Number(Quantity), which follows the format for multiple lot numbers in a line item. This enhancement applies to all transactions that allow lot number entry. For more information, see the help topic Basic Bin Management. Multi-Book Accounting Support for Allow Partial Receipt

Against a Fulfillment in Transfer at Cost

In 2020.2, NetSuite enabled you to create multiple partial receipts against specific fulfillments for a transfer order. However, If you used Multi-Book Accounting, you could not partially fulfill a transfer order receipt when the transfer order was at cost. Now, Multi-Book Accounting users can partially fulfill a transfer order receipt when the transfer order is at cost.