Demand

Demand refers to the quantity of a particular item that is ordered. Any outgoing order from a node is referred to as demand. It may be a customer order, where the item being ordered is required to be fulfilled by the fulfilling node, and there is a demand from the node. It may also be a replenishment order from a distribution center (DC) to a store, and therefore, the replenishment order is a demand for the DC and is the future supply for the receiving store. In a store-to-store transfer scenario, the transfer order is a demand for the source store, which is the store fulfilling the order, and a future supply for the store that will receive the transfer order.

Just like supply, demand is a dynamic and multi-faceted concept that evolves through different phases that are referred to as demand buckets in OneTruth. These demand buckets highlight the progression of demand from the point of creation in OneTruth to either the point of fulfillment (order getting shipped in case of a ship-to-home order or picked up in case of a BOPIS order) or the point where the order is canceled.

The following are some of the demand buckets that are available in OneTruth:

Order Confirmed: A demand in this bucket indicates that the order has been created, and the business is committed to meeting the demand. The order may either have a predefined node for fulfillment (common in BOPIS orders, but some businesses employ it for ship-to-home scenarios as well) or a node may be determined at a later stage.

Order Scheduled: The demand advances to this demand bucket once the order passes all necessary checks. This signifies that the sourcing engine has identified a node capable of fulfilling the order based on the order's ETA and the node's available supply (either on-hand or future supply).

Order Released: The demand progresses to this demand bucket once the order is ready for fulfilment. The enterprise’s order management system (OMS) will replace the status based on the release goal.

Back Order: The demand progresses to this demand bucket when an enterprise’s OMS cannot fulfill an order primarily due to insufficient supply. When the supply levels are replenished, the OMS may update the order’s status and notify OneTruth about the availability for fulfillment.

Note: OneTruth provides enterprises the ability to configure additional demand buckets based on their business use cases.

Demand can be met only when enough on-hand supply exists. Thus, enterprises need to calculate availability for every supply and demand change.