AWRA Help Center

A minimum and maximum for each warehouse can be typed in by hand, as described in Min / Max Per Warehouse. A predictive level is calculated instead. The Reorder screen and stock balancing treat a predictive level exactly like a typed one.

Switching A Warehouse To Predictive

1. Open the item and go to its Stock tab. Under warehouse levels, change Policy from Fixed levels to Predictive for a warehouse.
2. Set the service level: how likely you want it to be that you do not run out during one order cycle. The default is 95%, and you can choose anything from 50% to 99.9%.
3. Set how many days of stock each order should cover (30 unless you change it).
4. Tick Follow last year's season if demand for this item rises and falls through the year.

When you save, the minimum and maximum are calculated straight away. They are then recalculated every night at 03:20. The fields become read-only, and the screen shows how each figure was reached.

How The Figures Are Worked Out

• Demand: what that warehouse used each day over the last 90 days (approved check-outs and till sales, less till returns). Days with no sales are counted too, so an item that sells in bursts is treated as more uncertain.
• Season: last year's demand over the coming lead time compared with last year's average. This is used only once the warehouse has a year of history, and is kept between half and double.
• Lead time: a lead time typed for this item and supplier comes first. Without one, AWRA uses the supplier's real order-to-receipt days for this item from its 10 most recent receipts, and after that the lead time on the item. How much the lead time varies is taken from the same receipts, or estimated from the supplier's on-time rate.
• Safety stock combines how much demand varies and how much the lead time varies, scaled by the service level. The minimum is the demand expected over the lead time plus that safety stock. The maximum is the minimum plus the review period's demand, divided by the supplier's fill rate.

Dividing by the fill rate means you order more from a supplier who short-ships, because what you order is not what arrives. A supplier who delivers only half of each order is never ordered more than double, however low their fill rate.

Supplier Lead Times On The Item

The item's Stock tab also has a Supplier lead times panel. It has one row for each supplier that has a typed lead time, has supplied the item on an order, or is its preferred supplier. Each row shows the days you typed, the days actually observed from receipts, and how many receipts that figure is based on. Type a figure to correct a supplier whose history is wrong or too short to rely on, or clear it to go back to the history. Saving recalculates the item's predictive levels immediately, without waiting for the nightly run. The same panel is on the item screen in the mobile app.

Permissions

Changing a level policy or a supplier lead time needs Edit items.

Related

See Reorder To Purchase Order and Stock Balancing.