Process: Manage inventory

 

Flow

Legend

 

Objective

Encapsulate processes for the management of inventory.

 

Description

WebSphere Commerce supports three model of invnetory systems: ATP (availble to promise), non-ATP and no inventory.

Non-ATP inventory is a simple inventory system. It only supports three actions: check inventory, update inventory and reverse update inventory. If the non-ATP inventory is used, the order capture is supported. But many order processing features will not be supported, that is, you will not have backorders, future orders and release to fulfillment, etc. A simple inventory adjustment tool will be provided in the commerce accelerator.

No inventory system is similar to non-ATP with unlimited inventory. That is, the inventory is always available.

ATP inventory system is a function rich inventory management system. It supports many order processing features. The following are descriptions of the ATP inventory management processes.

There are several processes that are involved in inventory management. This includes processes for managing reserves on inventory (prevent it from being allocated to orders), for managing adjustments to inventory, and for managing expected inventory. Expected inventory allows the tracking of inventory that has been ordered as well as what has and has not arrived.

Inventory includes anything that can be physically accounted for in a fulfillment center. There are specific definitions of types of inventory that can be fulfilled, such as items, products, SKUs, bundles, packages, and dynamic kits; but these are all considered inventory.

WebSphere Commerce supports the following inventory-management methods:

Available to promise (ATP) provides a mechanism to ensure that commitments made to customers are based on information a seller has about expected inventory as well as inventory currently available. You can manage expected inventory records (anticipation of arrival of inventory from a vendor to a fulfillment center) and track as well as manage inventory.

WebSphere Commerce provides tools to manage inventory:

 

Features

 

Edition

Professional, Enterprise

 

Subprocesses

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