Guaranteed Stocking Levels

Version: 10.1.400.20

We have agreements with several customers where we’ve guaranteed them that we’ll stock minimum quantities of some parts and it is available to them at a moments notice. These parts are also available to sell to other customers. The product has a long lead time, about 50 days. How do we get the system to maintain the guaranteed stocking levels while still allowing us to sell to other customers?

Some initial ideas were:
-To have a ‘fake’ order in the system to which the product is allocated. The downside of that is that the order is then a part of our sales backlog and shows as a pending sale, which may never happen.
-To put product in non-nettable bins. This doesn’t work as the product still needs to be valued in inventory.
-To put product into non-conformance until needed. I don’t recall whether MRP “sees” product that is in the inspection process.

I keep coming back to using Safety Stock and Minimum Qty. It just doesn’t seem like that would be enough to guarantee those stocking levels.

Does anyone one else have to meet such requirements or have any other ideas as to what we can do?

Thank you,
Bob Beaghan

Safety stock and minimum quantities are exactly what you need if you’re running MRP.
Your min would be that level that the customer requires. The safety stock would be the amount to cover the time it takes to rebuild should you dip below.
Even if other customers utilize the stock, MRP will account for that. It takes in all sources of demand and compares it to open jobs, POs, and inventory levels/parameters.