This data piece is the item master data. It describes all characteristics of items required to plan your inventory in different cases, such as:

• planning demand at a category level;
• accounting for constraints;
• multi-echelon planning;
• planning intersite transfers;
• planning products with a shelf life.

Despite all the above cases, basically, the primary goal of this data piece is to provide Streamline with the current on-hand quantity for every planning item. A planning item is defined by Item code or by pair Item code, Location, if you plan your inventory in different locations. Thus, the required data types for this data piece are shown in the table below.

Streamline allows you to plan your demand at a category level. It means that you are able to set specific forecasting options and make manual forecast overrides at a particular level of the category tree. To be able to do this, you should provide Streamline with the data types shown in the table below.

You can import as many categories as you need.

In addition to the Item code and Location, you can import data types displayed in the table below.

If your data source contains the relevant lead time and order cycle, Streamline gives you the ability to import them through data types indicated in the table below.

The accuracy of inventory reports can be improved, if you additionally provide the Lead time variance (see table below).

To optimize the inventory, Streamline uses a lot of inputs such as Last on hand, Lead time, Order cycle, and other. Safety stock can be also considered as an input because it is used to determine the optimal ordering plan.

There two basic methods that Streamline uses to calculate safety stock. The first one is a well-known method based on service level. Streamline implements it and allows you to import service level for each planning item from a database. Another method is based on the future demand. Streamline allows you to set up the number of future periods of which demand is taken as the safety stock for a planning item.

A description of these data types is given in the table below.

Streamline allows importing settings on how each item should be planned right from the data source. The table below shows which settings are available to set up.

Streamline can calculate key inventory indicators (KPI) such as expected stockout and overstock values, gross margin, and other metrics. To enable the calculations, you should provide one of the data types shown in the table below.

The Purchase price/unit is also used to calculate the value of purchase orders' lines recommended by Streamline. You need to import either Sales price/unit or Transaction revenue for some of the KPIs (for example, the annual revenue, revenue next year, etc.).

Streamline allows you to import supplier information shown in the table below.

Streamline allows you to account for constraints when optimizes inventory. There are two types of constraints, constraints on the item quantity that is ordered and constraints on the purchase order as a whole. Data types for the constraints are given in the table below.

Constrains on the purchase order are tied to the Supplier code. If no supplier code is given they are attached to an empty supplier. If a planning item is supplied from a DC and has Supplier code and some of these constraints given, Streamline neglects these constraints.

Streamline allows performing two-echelon planning.

If you have only one distribution center (DC), Streamline does not require you to provide any additional data, and you can set up all DC's options in the DC settings. In this case, however, there is no ability to account for the case when a location is supplied by the supplier directly (skipping the DC).

If you have several DCs, you can import and set up them using the Database connection. In this case:

• you should provide additional information (described below);
• distribution center is always enebled and the Location control is disabled in the Settings;
• a location can be supplied by the supplier directly skipping the DCs;
• the options set in the DC settings are applied to all your DCs at once.

You can import any number of DCs and set up which locations are supplied by a particular DC on an item basis. It means you should set up a triple (Location, DC name, Item code). For example, the triple (West, DC west, Dark chocolate) means that DC west supplies West location with Dark chocolate.

There are two limitations on the DC-location relation:

• Two (or more) DCs can’s supply the same item to the same location.
• A DC can’t supply another DC, that is, only DC-to-location relations are allowed.

To set up the relations, the DC name data type should be returned with the Item info query (see table below). It indicates the name of the DC in the triple.

Now, we describe the data types that the Item info query should return in order to Streamline set the relations properly.

As we explained previously, to set up a triple, the Item info query should return the following data columns: Location, DC name, and Item code. The table below shows an example of records that should be returned by the query in order to set up a DC-location-item relation.

As you see, we need two records to be returned for each DC-location-item relation. The first one links location A to DC1, meaning that Item1 will be supplied by DC1 to location A. The second one declares DC1 as a location that stores Item1.

To set up a situation when an item is supplied to a location by the supplier directly (no DC involved), the query should return the record shown in the table below. The table shows example data.

Let's consider an example shown in the figure below.

In this case, the query should return the data shown in the table below.

Streamline can generate suggestions on inventory transfers between your stores if there is an overstock at least at one of them. By default, Streamline spends this overstock to fulfill current orders going up from the smallest to the largest, maximizing the number of replenished stores.

Additionally, Streamline allows you to put constraints on this rule by introducing the regions where the transfers are allowed. This is done using a data type that should be set for each location belonging to a region (see table below).

Locations belonging to different regions can't have transfers. At the same time, transfers between locations of the same region are allowed.

These constraints are optional, thus, Transfer region data type can have gaps, meaning that the locations do not take part in any intersite transfers.

Streamline allows you to plan products having a limited shelf life. Product shelf life can be given in two units of measure (see table below).

The Shelf life parameter is used as a constraint in the inventory optimization. It is the maximal limit on the current order quantity derived from the given shelf-life period and generated demand forecasts.

Next: Item Information

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