Understanding Alerts

Menu > Execution Alerts

Viewing Alerts

In the Alerts page

You can easily navigate the Alerts page by clicking on the Alerts tab in the header bar.

Once on the Alerts screen, you will see a filter bar on the left hand side of the screen that outlines the number of each type of Alert in the system.

The tooltip “?” next to each alert offers you the condition under which those alerts will be raised by R+. In some organizations it is the responsibility of the Planners to place the orders while the Buyers follow up on the open supply orders. In such cases, Buyers would use the Alerts view and after following up with the suppliers, they would be expected to enter supply order notes. The explanation of those notes is on the next page.

In the Workbench/Workbench Preview

You can see Alerts in the Workbench by selecting the columns “Alert Status” and “Alert Type”:

The purpose of offering alerts in the Workbench is to assist planners in deciding which orders being placed that day may also need to be expedited.

Summary of Alerts

After you have accepted all of the recommended orders on the Workbench - or depending on your process - as you are accepting recommended orders, you should review the Execution Alerts. Alerts are designed to help Planners/Buyers focus on parts that may need extra attention and identify open supply orders that may need to be expedited. Alerts are available in the Workbench view and as separate views under the Alerts menu. You will see four types of alerts:

• Current Inventory Alert: CIA Critical and CIA High

• Material Synchronization Alert: MSA Critical and MSA High

• Projected Stock Out Alert: PSO Critical, PSO High and PSO Medium

• Lead Time Managed Alert: LTM Critical, LTM High and LTM Medium

Each of these Alerts also has a Tool Tip on the Alerts page that can remind you what each of the conditions for these Alerts are. The Tool Tip is the little gray question mark on the Alert tab.

Type	Applies to	Condition
CIA-Critical	Buffered Parts	Current On Hand = 0 and there is past due or current demand
CIA High	Buffered Parts	Current On Hand > 0 On hand is less than past due and/or current demand
MSA-Critical	Buffered and Non-Buffered Parts	Versions 4.16.8 or Less Demand and Supply exist within 1 R+ lead time, or "Include All Open Supply in MSA" is selected Running Balance as displayed in the All Activity view is 0 or less than 0 Date displayed for buffered parts will be the first time the running balance is 0 or less than 0. For non-buffered parts this date can be in the past, but for buffered parts this date will be today or in the future. Versions 4.17+ Demand exists within 1 R+ Lead Time or into the foreseeable future if "Enable Material Synchronization outside Alert Horizon" is selected. Running Balance as displayed in the All Activity view is 0 or less than 0
MSA-High	Buffered Parts	Versions 4.16.8 or Less Demand and Supply exist within 1 R+ lead time, or "Include All Open Supply in MSA" is selected Running Balance as displayed in the All Activity view is 0 or less than 0 Running balance is less than or equal to % of ToR. This % of ToR is the Inventory Alert Level. Date displayed for buffered parts will be the first time the running balance is 0 or less than 0. For non-buffered parts this date can be in the past, but for buffered parts this date will be today or in the future. Versions 4.17+ Demand exists within 1 R+ Lead Time or into the foreseeable future if "Enable Material Synchronization outside Alert Horizon" is selected. Running Balance as displayed in the All Activity view is 50% of Red Zone or Less
PSO-Critical	Buffered Parts	If on any day the above running balance is 0 or less than 0, then it is critical. The first time that situation occurs will be the date that is displayed in the Alert.
PSO-High	Buffered Parts	A running balance table is created (this is different from what you see in the All Activity view) that starts with on hand inventory, decrementing EDU for each working day an incrementing for each supply out to the Alert Horizon for that part. Default is 1 R+ lead time. If on any the above running balance is less than the % of ToR (Inventory Alert Level), then it is High. The first time that situation occurs will be the date that is displayed in the Alert.
PSO-Medium	Buffered Parts	A running balance table is created (this is different from what you see in the All Activity view) that starts with on hand inventory, decrementing EDU for each working day an incrementing for each supply out to the Alert Horizon for that part. Default is 1 R+ lead time. If on any the above running balance is less than ToR, then it is Medium. The first time that situation occurs will be the date that is displayed in the Alert.
LTM-High	LTM Parts (NB)	Order due to arrive in less than 11% of R+ lead time
LTM-Medium	LTM Parts (NB)	Order due to arrive in between 11% and 22% of R+ lead time
LTM-Low	LTM Parts (NB)	Order due to arrive in between 22% and 33% of R+ lead time

Alert Examples

Here are some examples of each Alert. Each example is based on sample data and is not representative of your R+ data.

Current Inventory Alert – Critical

Part Number 300-1001 has an on hand of 0 and pas due demand of 15 (today is 8/9/2020). The part is flagged as “Stock Out With Demand” in dark red.

Current Inventory Alert – High

You will see that part number 201-1016 has 0 on hand and 0 demand. Part number 201-1021 has 8 on hand but the demand is 10 which is more than 8. Both these parts are flagged as CIA-High, it is displayed “Stock Out” in red.

Material Synchronization Alert – Critical

You can see that part number 253-1003 on 9/18/2020 the running balance is less than 0. It gets flagged as MSA-Critical and the date is displayed as “9/18/2020” in dark red.

Material Synchronization Alert – High

From the Buffer Sizing tab, you can confirm that ToR for 360-1005 is 2520. Inventory Alert level is 50%. 50% of 2520 equals 1260. You can look at the Running Balance column and see that the first occurrence of a value equal to or less than 1260 happens on 8/13/2020 (the value is 1192). So you will see a MSA-High alert in red with a date of 8/13/2020.

When “Include Open Supply in Projected Stock out Alert” is selected:

Projected Stock Out Alert – Critical

For this example, we are assuming that there is a % of ToR Level of 50%.

First you want to find out the EDU for the part number 206-1002. From the Properties tab we confirm that the EDU for this part is 4. Next you see that all supplies have Order Receipt Date as 9/3/2020. Today is 8/10/2020 and if you decrement the on-hand quantity of 20 for each working day you will get a running balance of 0 on 8/17/2020. Remember the calendar is set to Mon-Fri. So, the first date when running balance hits 0 is 8/17/2020. You will see 8/17/2020 displayed in dark red.

Projected Stock Out Alert – High

First you want to find out the EDU and Inventory Alert for the part number 201-1011. From the Properties tab you can confirm that the EDU is 5 and it belongs to the buffer profile B21M. From the Buffer Profile menu, you can see that the Inventory Alert is set at 50%. From the Buffer Sizing tab, you can see that the ToR is 50. So, 50% of 50 is 25. The first occurrence of running balance going below 25 determines the PSO-High date. Today is 8/9/2020, on-hand is 40 and decrementing EDU of 5 for each working day will get us a running balance of 25 on 8/12/2020. Hence, you will see PSO-High with date as 8/12/2020 displayed in red.

Projected Stock Out Alert – Medium

• From the Properties tab you can confirm that the EDU is 9 and ToR is 108 for the part number 201-1007. Decrementing the On hand of 200 each working day by 9, the running balance will be below 108 in 10 days. You will see PSO-Medium for this part displaying a date of 8/24/2020 in yellow.

• Part number 201-1017 is a Min/Max part and it has no EDU. So, you will see PSO-Medium for this part displayed in yellow and the % shown is on hand divided by ToR; 30/40 = 75%.

When “Include Open Supply in Projected Stock out Alert” is unselected:

Projected Stock Out Alert – High

From the Buffer Sizing tab, you can confirm that Part number FPA has a ToR of 220. Inventory Alert level is 50%. So, if on hand is less than 110 (50% of 220) then it is PSO-High. From the Properties tab you can confirm that this part number has an EDU of 20. On hand of 14 will not be enough for a single day. Today is 8/10/2020, so you will see a PSO-High alert in red with a date 8/11/2020.

Projected Stock Out Alert – Medium

From the Buffer Sizing tab, you can confirm that part number FPD has a ToR of 312. Inventory Alert level is 50%. So, if on hand is less than 156 (50% of 312), then it is PSO-Medium. From the Properties tab, you can confirm that this part number has an EDU of 40. On hand divided by EDU equals (312/40) = 7.8, round it off to 8 days. 8 days from today of 8/10/2020 is 8/19/2020. You will see a yellow PSO-Medium with a date 8/19/2020 displayed.

LTM-High (an open supply with a promise date within 11% of R+ Lead Time)

From the Properties tab, you can confirm that the part number 800-1001 is a Lead Time Managed part and it has an R+ Lead time of 30 days. 11% of 30 days is 3.3 days. You can see an open Purchase Order with a promise date of 8/12/2020 which is less than 3 days from today, 8/10/2020. Hence you see an LTM alert in red with a date of 8/12/2020.

LTM-Medium (an open supply with a promise date between 11% and 22% of R+ Lead Time)

From the Properties tab, you can confirm that the part number 800-1005 has an R+ Lead Time of 60 days. 11% of 60 days equals 6.6. 22% of 60 days equals 13.2 days. You can see an open Purchase Order with a promise date of 8/20/2020, which is between 6 and 13 days from today, 8/10/2020. Hence you will see an LTM-Medium alert in yellow with a date displayed as 8/20/2020.

LTM-Low (an open supply with a promise date between 22% and 33% of R+ Lead Time)

From the Properties tab, you can confirm that the part number 800-1009 has an R+ Lead Time of 120 days. 22% of 120 equals 26 and 33% of 120 equals 40 days. You can see an open Purchase Order with a promise date of 9/14/2020 which is between 26 and 40 days from today, 8/10/2020. Hence you will see an LTM-Low alert in green with a date 9/14/2020 displayed.