🚨 Dynamic Planning: Emergency & Preponed Orders
Emergency and Preponed Orders are proactive tools Optiply uses to avoid lost sales when a product sells faster than anticipated. Instead of waiting for your next scheduled review, Optiply can dynamically adjust your planning to replenish stock immediately.
What is Dynamic Emergency Planning?
When the "Avoid lost sales" function is active for a supplier, Optiply constantly monitors your product forecasts. If an unexpected surge in demand threatens to cause a stockout before your next planned order, Optiply takes action by:
Planning an extra Emergency Purchase Order: A brand new, unscheduled order is generated immediately.
Preponing the Planning: Bringing forward (making earlier) your next scheduled review or purchase order.
How to Enable Dynamic Emergency Planning
This feature is enabled per supplier and is located in the supplier settings:
Go to the Suppliers Page: Navigate to the Suppliers overview in Optiply.
Select the Supplier: Click on the supplier you wish to configure.
Activate Avoid Lost Sales: Scroll down to the EMERGENCY ORDERS section and turn ON the Avoid lost sales functionality toggle.
The dynamic planning is reevaluated every day and continuously updated during the day.
Determining Order Type: Emergency vs. Preponed
Optiply automatically chooses between planning a new Emergency Order or Preponing an existing one based on a financial analysis of profitability:
Emergency Order: Results in extra ordering costs (e.g., higher freight, admin fees) but might cover a longer stockout period.
Preponed Order: Results in higher inventory holding costs (since stock arrives earlier) but avoids the extra fixed ordering cost.
Optiply selects the option that will yield the highest net profit after factoring in these costs and the expected lost sales.
Profitability and Financial Thresholds
Optiply will only update the planning if a sufficient profit will be made by placing the order, based on the expected lost sales and your desired service level.
If a profit is at stake, Optiply will then check the financial thresholds you set, ensuring the emergency order value justifies the costs.
Condition | Emergency Order Generated If... |
Fixed Order Costs | The calculated order value exceeds the fixed order costs (or a multiple thereof). |
Minimum Order Value (MOV) | The calculated order value exceeds the minimum order value (MOV) set for the supplier. |
Both Costs Combined | The calculated order value exceeds the sum of the fixed order costs AND the minimum order value. |
You have full control over which financial threshold (or combination of thresholds) the system uses.
Combining with Backorders
If you have the Backorders feature (for negative stock positions) also turned On, Optiply ensures continuity:
If an additional order is already generated due to backorder requirements, Optiply will update that existing backorder to include the necessary items for the Emergency or Preponed order, preventing the creation of two separate emergency orders.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the difference between an Emergency Order and a Backorder?
An Emergency Order is proactive: it is triggered by a sudden surge in demand to prevent a stockout (avoiding lost sales). A Backorder is reactive: it is triggered when a product is already sold out and is in a negative stock position.
Can Optiply place an Emergency Order if the potential profit is very low?
No. Optiply first checks if the profit generated from the expected lost sales (based on your service level) outweighs the additional ordering or inventory holding costs. If the profit is not sufficient, the planning will not be updated.
I manually brought an order forward last week. Will the dynamic planning overwrite it?
Dynamic planning is reevaluated continuously. If your manual adjustment sufficiently covers the demand to avoid lost sales, the system will not interfere. However, if demand surges again, the system may further adjust or prepone the order.
What does "preponed order results in more inventory costs" mean?
It means that by moving the arrival of the stock earlier than originally planned, the stock will sit in your warehouse for a longer duration, increasing your overall inventory holding costs (storage, insurance, obsolescence risk).