Dynamics AX 2012 Available-to-Promise (ATP): Are You Using It to Full Effect?

Available-to-promise (ATP) is a simple calculation meant to provide a customer with a promise date for delivery. The business model is Make-to-Stock. This means that we have inventory on the shelf based on a forecast or a safety stock.

We typically use automatic reservation in Microsoft Dynamics AX so we do not run the risk of selling the same inventory twice. Nowadays we can control the automatic reservation in the Item Model group.

If we create a sales line for a quantity that we do not have in stock and we have automatic reservation, we will get the shortage window that allows us to look up on-hand in other sites or other companies.

Is this not enough? We have a backorder and we will try to fill it ASAP. But most customers will not accept a simple "Your items are on backorder, we will call you when they arrive"! We need to give the customer a "promise date". And this should be an "informed" promise date based on actual receipts that are on the way.

With ATP, we use the information regarding existing supply orders. The system goes through the entire ATP time fence and calculates an "ATP Quantity" for every day, which is nothing more than the expected supply minus already promised quantities to other customers.

ATP will only deal with the receipt of the Finished item that is in the sales line. It is a single level look up. (as opposed to capable-to-promise or CTP, which will be addressed in a separate article).

Note: ATP can work on the site level. In that case ...