Align Transfers

Align Transfers

Align Transfers reschedules planned transfers to match the inventory available at each shipping location. For each transfer, it checks whether the source location has enough stock on the ship date, then moves the transfer to the earliest date the source location has enough stock to send it.

The result is a transfer plan that follows inventory availability:
  1. A transfer planned to ship before its stock exists is pushed out to the first day there's enough.
  2. A transfer held back while its stock is already there is pulled in.

Align Transfers changes ship and arrival dates only. It works on the Sandbox scenario.

Run Align Transfers

  1. Open the Planning Worksheet.
  2. Select an item in the tree. The Optimize menu is available once something is selected.
  3. Click Optimize > Align Transfers.
  4. In the confirmation window, choose which transfers to align
  5. Click Align Transfers.





When the alignment finishes, a confirmation message appears and the worksheet refreshes with the new dates.

Align Transfers covers the whole plan. Selecting an item in the tree makes the Optimize menu available, but the alignment processes every matching transfer in the Sandbox, whatever you selected.

Choose a run for DRP or MRP Transfers. If you choose DRP Transfers or MRP Transfers without picking a run, no transfers are moved, and the success message still appears.

Run times in the DRP and MRP lists are in UTC. Convert to your local time when you pick a run.

If your environment doesn't show the confirmation window, clicking Align Transfers starts aligning all transfers immediately.

How the new dates are worked out

Upstream first

Alignment starts at the beginning of your supply chain. Transfers leaving your original supply points, usually plants or vendors, are aligned first. Align Transfers then follows the moved product to the next location, such as a central distribution center, and aligns the transfers leaving there, and so on down the network.

Further down the network, it follows moved transfers to the next location only while their ship date is before the end of the free (unfrozen) planning period.

Earliest ship date gets stock first
When several transfers leave the same location, the transfer with the earliest planned ship date gets the available inventory first. The next transfer gets what's left, and so on.

Transit time is kept
The arrival date moves with the ship date. A transfer that took 5 days in transit before alignment still takes 5 days.

Example

A plant has no stock until a production order of 120 units completes on October 10. Two transfers leave the plant for a distribution center, each with 5 days in transit:



The quantities stay the same. Align Transfers then aligns the transfers leaving the distribution center, using the new arrival dates.

What Align Transfers leaves unchanged

  1. Quantities. Transfer quantities aren't changed.
  2. The number of transfers. It doesn't create, delete or split transfers.
  3. The Official scenario. It works on the Sandbox only.
  4. Supply. It doesn't buy or produce more stock. If the source location never has enough stock, the transfer is pushed to the end of the planning horizon.

Things to keep in mind

  1. ERP transfers are included in All Transfers. If your ERP transfer orders are fixed commitments, align DRP Transfers or MRP Transfers instead, so your ERP dates aren't moved.
  2. Some loops are skipped. If two locations only ship to each other and nothing upstream supplies them, their transfers aren't aligned.
  3. Large models take longer. Other edits wait until the alignment and the recalculation that follows have finished.
  4. Review the results before you publish. Check the worksheet and any transfer alerts to confirm the new dates work for you.