Reservation Vs.Allocation

Question

Hello,
we are working with Oracle Apps in a WMS inventory org on R11.5.10.2. We have an issue that seems to be a GAP within the Oracle Logisitics footprint and I was wondering if any of you can help with a solution
We have sales orders coming from 3 lines of business so we have 3 different SO types (let's call them STC, LTC, DEMO). These SO type share the same items and they can pick from the same subinventories, however, they also have dedicated subinventories which means STC order type will have a dedicated subinventory where only this order type can pick from. This business requirement is easily achieved using WMS rules.
The issue comes on reservations. All the subinventories are reserveable and ATP enabled. Reservations are working on organization level which means I can have a DEMO order reserving stock from the STC subinventory but the picking rules will not allow picking to occur.
Now imagine the following scenario:
1) stock only exists in STC pickable subinventory
2) DEMO order is raised for the same item reserving all the stock - sales rep for DEMO order checks ATP and commits to the customer we can deliver
3) picking for DEMO fails - as picking rules don't allow it
4) STC order is raised and reservations fails (since the stock is already reserved for DEMO)
5) STC order goes to backorder when stock exists - customer is not happy!!
The problem is actually worse than decribed because we have WIP and WIP cannot pick from certain subinventories.
This is a real scenario and we need a longterm solution. The issue is reservations as working on organization level with no distinction as to order type or source.
New orgs and new item codes are not solution because what differentiates the picking is the item "status" like new or second hand.
I'm sure others have come across this issue.
Any ideas how to workaround this issue?
NOTE: Also posted this question on Logistics subforum but I suppose OM also suffers from this issue

Answer 1

Hi,
Fabio,
your suggestion that the picking rules need reviewing is not feasible. Let me try to clarify. For sake of simplicity imagine the following: We have 2 subinventories NEW and USED. We have 2 order types STC and LTC. For LTC we always want to pick from USED first and then from NEW. For STC we only pick from NEW. The issue comes when there is only stock in USED of a particular item and the STC order is reserving it. Since both subinventories hold the same items (just in different conditions) how do you suggest we model the picking rules?
Regarding your second suggestion (performing hard reservation) - I'll arrange a conf call so you can tell the users they should do this on every line :-)
We have more thousands of lines shipped daily (not to mention the fact that customer service reps don't know where the stock is - thus ATP)
Nagamohan,
this would indeed be an option but as I recall this only allows reserving from one subinventory which defeats our model.... but I'll play around with this to see if I can work something. Thanks for this.
I think what Oracle needs is reservations to be more flexible (by source like WIP, SO, etc and by type like non-standard WIP job, standard WIP jobs, order type ,etc.)
Regards