Check delivery times

The check delivery times (CDT) is a function in MONITOR G5 which is mainly used to control and calculate the delivery date of a customer order. The CDT takes existing requirements and reservations into consideration, as well as available capacity and material. The check is made in connection with the order being created.

The purpose of CDT is to offer better master plans with reasonable delivery dates on customer orders and reasonable finish dates on manufacturing orders. However, it is optional to use the delivery dates and finish dates calculated by the CDT.

A prerequisite to use the CDT is that stock balances and order quantities on parts are updated and that correct lot sizing rules are selected for the parts.

It is possible to run CDT on quotes. The CDT will then reserve both capacity and material for the hypothetical customer order.

For manufacturing orders you can run CDT to check/control when a manufacturing order can be finished. This check does not include the requirement calculation which is made on the highest level for quote and customer order. This requirement calculation is not needed since manufacturing should always take place. On the other hand, requirement calculation is performed on material included/incorporated in the manufacturing order.

You can use the CDT function on parts in order to check when it is possible to deliver a certain part, if a customer order should be created right now for the part in question. Since there is no customer order with a quantity to use as a basis, the CDT is instead based on the order quantity of the part.

If you apply Alternate BOM and routing, it means that the CDT function also takes the terms customer, variant code, revision, part status, and order type, into consideration, since these might affect the result on customer order and quote. For parts, the CDT takes the active part revision and today's date into consideration. When applying alternative BOM and routing, it considers the part status as well.

When you register a new work center, the setting regarding if it should be included in CDT is activated by default. The default mode of this setting is determined by a system setting. Normally you only need to include the work centers that are "bottle necks" (for example different machines) in the CDT.

To apply CDT you activate a main system setting and then you use the following settings to select what the CDT should check by default. These system settings become available when you activate the main system setting. Read more about this in the topic System settings for check delivery times.

When CDT is activated, it will automatically run on manufacturing order, customer order row, or quote row, in each registration procedure. This takes place when part number, quantity, and planned delivery date/finish date, is entered or modified. Then it is also possible to run CDT on multiple customer orders at a time in the procedure Order list – Sales. In the Part register procedure you can then run CDT on part. There you run the CDT manually by clicking the button Run CDT on the toolbar. Then the CDT is only run on the part's order quantity, since there is no quantity on order or delivery date to be used as basis.

The CDT is also run when you save an order or a quote in each registration procedure. It might be the case, that a balance has been changed by another user during the time you have been working on the quote or order. In that case, a warning will be displayed when you save and it is then possible for you to accept the new delivery date in which the balance change resulted.

If, for example, two sales representatives register a customer order each and run the CDT (and do not create manufacturing orders straight away), then the CDT will take these two orders into consideration. This is done to avoid situations where the sellers promise delivery times based on the same capacity and material availability. When the CDT is run directly and is not only available locally at the user, then the result of one CDT can affect the other CDT in the example.

The CDT function checks and calculates three things:

1. It checks if the planned date is reasonable. The result can either be positive or negative. The answer depends on the result of the calculation in item 2. For example: "Can we deliver 10 pieces of part A on May 14?" The answer can either be yes or no.
2. Make a calculation of the earliest possible time on which the part and quantity can be produced based on the standard BOM and routing. "10 pieces of part A can be delivered on May 5 at the earliest".
3. Make a calculation of the earliest possible time on which the part and quantity can be produced, but where some replanning is required to achieve that result. It might be that an operation should be run in a different machine which has less loading, or that an alternative supplier with shorter lead times is suggested. "10 pieces of part A can be delivered on May 3 at the earliest if operation 20 is run in work center 110 instead of in work center 230". The result of this calculation is only shown in the result window which can be opened when you register order/quote. The suggested replanning will not be applied until you accept it.

The calculation results in earliest delivery date/finish date "when we can deliver". This is not the same as when the customer can have the parts at their location (transport time should be added and fixed delivery days might make a difference).

In addition to receiving different dates as result, you can also in the result window see a more detailed view which the calculation has created. It shows availability of the different operations and the material, and the differences compared to the planned date. Each calculation finds a critical point for the order, that is, a maximum difference (between planned delivery date and earliest possible delivery date according to CDT) for either operation or for material, which determines what the earliest delivery date/finish date will be. This date can then be used as a planned delivery date on the customer order or quote, or the finish date on the manufacturing order.

If you cannot deliver within the planned time (that is, if the CDT results in a difference), then it is either an operation or a material which is most critical (has the maximum difference). This is called critical point for the order, and it is here you should first try to take action to, if possible, shorten the delivery time.

When you register a quote or a customer order, the CDT function checks if delivery of the quantity can take place on the planned delivery date you entered. A requirement calculation is made. If there is no shortage, then you can deliver on the date you have entered. If there is a shortage you must refill the stock. This always apply for parts with the lot sizing rules Fixed order quantity, Period requirement, and Lot-for-lot. For parts with the lot sizing rule Linked requirement the situation is instead that the stock never has to be checked since manufacturing will take place regardless of the stock balance.

If the CDT finds that there is a shortage, an action will start where the CDT function checks when the part can be manufactured with the quantity which the part's lot sizing rule determines. This is based on available capacity and available material. Read more about this in the topics Check of capacity availability and Check of material availability.