Can ATUM be customized to allow Buffer (Safety Stock) functionality?

blanksboutique

We currently utilize an OSCommerce solution that allows for the setting of a % buffer of our products. It's a safety stock functionality that ensures that we are protected from miscounts, defects, missed forecasts, etc..

We are totally open to custom development, we just don't know if that's possible with ATUM.

Forum_Admin

Hi blanksboutique ,

Thank you very much for your post and question.

I believe the out of stock threshold is exactly the same as this buffer. The threshold is the for the purpose of safety stock as you call it. Have you tried using this function?

Pavel

blanksboutique

Forum_Admin we use a percentage vs whole number. What we have seen in ATUM it's a whole number?

Forum_Admin

HI blanksboutique ,

You have just lost me there? ATUM has nothing to do with this feature? Can you explain again, pls?

Pavel

blanksboutique

Your Reserved Stock field - can I modify it to be a percentage-based number? 10% of new stock should be reserved, for instance.

We think your system could work if we could figure this aspect out. Here is kind of a summary of how we use it:
Inventory Buffer Needs

The current system utilizes a percentage based “buffer” safety stock as a means for protecting from miscounts, defects and other anomalies.

The functionality requires setting a percentage based buffer at the Product level with propagation to stock levels for each Product -> Color -> Size.

Each new shipment is divided into an Available Qty and Buffer Qty based on a predetermined buffer percentage for the product.

The Buffer Qty is dynamic due to Customer Service utilizing for various needs.

Example of New Shipment’s effect on existing fields:

Available Qty = current available Qty + new shipment available Qty

Buffer qty = current buffer qty + new shipment buffer qty (buffer qty does not recalculate on customer purchase transactions. The only time buffer qty changes is when a new shipment is stocked and when items are manually moved from buffer to available column.)

Total qty = current available Qty (avail qty + buffer qty) + new shipment available Qty (avail qty + buffer qty)

Forum_Admin

Hi blanksboutique ,

Ahhhh, now I know what you are talking about.
The reserved column in Stock Central is within the Inventory Logs section. It has nothing to do with automated stock reservation.

You can create an Inventory Log where you can reserve a part of your stock for future use.

I am moving this post into a feature request section as I want to add your proposed feature into the list.

Once again, I apologise we can not help here.

Best Regards,

Pavel

blanksboutique

Forum_Admin I really appreciate the info!

So do most companies not maintain safety stock that is not available to customers on their e-commerce site? I’m trying to figure out if maybe we should be doing a different process. We are a variable quantity - fixed reorder point supply chain and make orders of tens of thousands of each product we sell. So for us, buffering allows us to prevent issues with factory miscounted , defects, etc that otherwise could cause us to go out of stock.

We are really struggling coming from OSCommeerce where we were able to have a custom soliton that provided this, can’t find anything in real world outside of OSC that does.

Forum_Admin

I understand you are upset blanksboutique ,

Unfortunately, this is not something I can help you with right away.

For me, it is crucial to understand one more thing before we move on. If you say % buffer, it means a percentage from what exactly?

From current stock, from a fixed stock amount? I am not sure how would the system know what percentage of stock for that particular product to calculate. If you set the percentage to 3, for example, it would get smaller every time someone orders, and the stock reduces.

Pavel

blanksboutique

Not upset, just surprised that I'm unable to find anyone else that utilizes the business process. I think I may have found a workaround, splitting into "virtual" warehouses. We really like your software, more than SkuVault / TradeGecko / etc.... so trying to find a way to use it. Hoping that perhaps custom code and your premium modules, we might find away.

But to answer your question -

We have fixed order points because we are a private label clothing manufacturer. We are not ordering products from vendors that are ready to ship. Therefore, we cannot just send an order for one item as it goes out of stock, but instead have to place very large manufacturing purchase orders every couple of months with a 6-8 week production time. When the products arrive, it's tractor-trailer loads of clothing of multiple colors/sizes/styles that are too large to immediately QC. We have to get the stock in our inventory as quickly as possible. So we presume that there will be errors in factory ship count, defects, etc. - and over the years we have learned that we can maintain a smoothly running shop with minimally held inventory quantities via utilizing a x% of the incoming stock process.

We only split the stock when new stock arrives from our factories overseas. So at replenishment time, we set aside a certain percentage of the incoming stock for each product. That percentage is then added to the already existing buffer quantity with our warehouse manually moving stock from buffer to available quantity as needed - typically as we get close to reorder point. Our order may contain 1000 of a certain product or 13000 of the same product due to seasonal changes, etc, so setting a fixed threshold wouldn't allow for us to be prepared for miscounts and defects proportionally to the amount of product we have coming in.

Forum_Admin

Ohhh now I think I get you - you need to set safety stock on your purchase order and not on the actual stock in WooCommerce.

Well, I can tell you that this feature (or very close) is already planned to be included in ATUM's Ordering Premium module. You will be able to set the lead time safety extension when planning order and the % of safety stock (:-)).

Example: A. You need your T-shirt stock for 3 months. Your supplier is giving you 8 weeks lead time on orders. ATUM will calculate you the approximate sales and tell you ahead of the 8 weeks so you do not run out. YOu will be able to set 2 emergency weeks there (just in case of delays).
B. If you experiencing damaged goods from suppliers you will be able to set % buffer on orders. So if normally you get 2% of goods damaged that you have to return, you set the buffer to 2%.

We plan to release this premium add-on mid to end of 2020.

Hope this helps.

Pavel