As noted in our post "Coming Soon - New DemandCaster Design," we have prepared a short video that walks through the new DemandCaster design that will be formally released to all customers on April 29.

The handling of Birth Dates and Discontinued Dates in the Item Life Cycle (itemlifecycle.txt) file has been enhanced to improve dates that are outside of the Calendar limits.  The following rules have been introduced to handle dates that are outside the calendar limits:

• If a Birth Date (or Discontinue Date) in the file is less than the minimum period in the calendar, the Birth Date (or Discontinue Date) will be adjusted equal to the first week of first monthly period of the calendar
• If a Birth Date (or Discontinue Date) in the file is greater than the maximum period in the calendar, the Birth Date (or Discontinue Date) will be adjusted equal to the first week of the last monthly period of the calendar

The ASP field on the Advanced Planning Reports has been extended to support six decimal levels of precision. The level of precision in the reports can be configured via the System Settings->Advanced Planning Settings->ASP values scale setting.

 In the report download popup, both the ASP and Both (Units + ASP) options now support the new level of decimal precision.  

The downloaded report will now support the defined level of precision. Please note that at some point in the near future, the same decimal precision will be offered in the user interface.

The previous logic of the Expedite Lead Time feature may bring forward an excess amount of inventory too early - before it is actually needed, and in some cases does not account for the fact that some of the orders may already be in transit.  As a result of this logic, additional steps might be required for the user to manually expedite to the time period it is required.

This enhancement improves the expedite logic with a few significant and complimentary enhancements:

• The expedite lead time logic has been enhanced to consider the Transfer/Transit Lead Time in determination of whether an order can be expedited.  In many situations an order that is within its Transfer Lead Time cannot be expedited due to the impracticality of trying to expedite an order that is already in transit.  For this reason, the Expedite Lead Time logic has been enhanced not to consider any orders within the Transfer Lead Time of an item. If there is no Transfer Lead Time, then any open orders during the Total Lead Time will not be expedited. The Total Lead Time in this situation is treated like it is a Transfer Lead Time. For this enhancement to be enabled, customers should configure their Total Lead Time to be inclusive of the Transfer Lead Time.
• Any orders beyond the Transfer Lead Time may be expedited up to the Expedite Lead Time but no earlier than a Safety Stock or Stock-Out breach. This prevents orders from being moved up earlier than needed.

Please note that we will be further enhancing the Expedite Lead Time logic to expedite not the entire quantity of the order, but only what is needed to cover the breech, from the point of the breech through the due date of the next order. At present, a user will need to modify the expedite order quantity if the original order quantity is greater than what is needed to cover the breech.