JP2006072701A - Shipment planning device and method - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a shipment planning device and method that enable the shipment of a number of products with a life requested by a customer even when the shelf life requirement depends on the customer and product. <P>SOLUTION: The shipment planning device 100 has: an order information storage part 102 for storing order information about product orders; an inventory information storage part 103 for storing inventory information about product inventory; a production plan information storage part 104 for storing production plan information about product production; a delivery life information storage part 105 for storing delivery life information about product delivery life requirements; and an allocation part 106 for performing allocation between the order information and the inventory information and, if the inventory is short, performing allocation between the order information and the production plan information. The allocation part 106 performs the allocation in consideration of both product shelf lives and delivery life requirements. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for preparing a shipment plan for a product having an expiration date such as food and medicine.

  In the case of products having a consumption expiration date, an expiration date, or a shelf life (hereinafter collectively referred to as an expiration date) such as food and pharmaceutical products, it is important in terms of cost and environment to prevent disposal due to expiration. Therefore, in order to reduce the risk of disposal at retail stores and supermarkets that sell products (hereinafter referred to as delivery destinations), the number of days remaining from the date of delivery to the expiration date is specified as the delivery condition from the manufacturer. Often to do. Since this remaining number of days varies depending on the delivery destination, the manufacturer needs to confirm the number of remaining days and ship the order from the delivery destination.

  Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-67281 describes an article sorting method and apparatus that supports sorting work at a distribution center when the expiration date is specified as a delivery condition. In the technology described in this gazette, an acceptable acceptance deadline to the sorting and conveying line for each article is determined based on expiration date information such as the expiration date, expiration date, or validity period from the date of manufacture. Set up acceptance deadline rules. As the acceptance deadline, for example, a date that is n days before the expiration date, or a date that passes, for example, 1/8 of the maximum valid period from the production date is set. The control computer calculates the acceptance deadline of the article based on the acceptance deadline rule, sorts the article received within the acceptance deadline into the area corresponding to the destination (delivery destination store), and returns the product received outside the acceptance deadline. Sort as follows.

  Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-287811 describes an apparatus for theoretically managing the expiration date of an article and preventing an inventory rotation error. Furthermore, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2002-99597 describes a system that performs inventory management taking into account the time when a product is finally delivered to a customer.

JP 2004-67281 JP JP 2001-287811 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2002-99597

  In recent years, due to the economic downturn, there is a high risk that products will remain in stock for a long time even if they are produced and shipped. Products with expiration dates such as food and pharmaceuticals must be discarded when their expiration dates expire. Therefore, many manufacturers and customers such as retail stores and supermarkets are trying to reduce inventory by producing and ordering only the required amount at the required time. As such efforts progress, at the time of shipment from the manufacturer or at the time of acceptance inspection at the delivery destination, if there is a product whose expiration date does not meet the prescribed conditions, it will be directly connected to the shortage of items at the store and missing items. The chance of missing an opportunity increases. Unless the manufacturer has enough inventory, it cannot be replenished immediately.

  In order to prevent such problems, when the manufacturer receives an order from the delivery destination, check whether the quantity that satisfies the expiration date in the current inventory and production plan can be shipped, It is necessary to increase.

  On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, both manufacturers and customers are accelerating the “production and ordering of only the required quantity at the required time”, so orders from suppliers to manufacturers are performed daily. In order to respond to the order, manufacturers need to give production instructions every day. It is a very difficult task in today's high-mix low-volume production to manually control the production volume by checking the conditions of the expiration date for each product type and delivery destination manually.

  By the way, although the conditions for the expiration date differ for each product, even for the same product, it varies depending on the delivery destination. Even for snacks, a discount store with a high product turnover may have a remaining number of expiration dates that is half the maximum validity period (the period from the date of manufacture to the expiration date), but a convenience store with a low product turnover rate, There is an example that the remaining number of expiration dates must be 2/3 or more of the maximum valid period.

  An object of the present invention is to provide a shipping plan planning apparatus and method capable of shipping a delivery deadline and a quantity of a product requested by a delivery destination even when the expiration date is different for each delivery destination and product. is there.

  According to the present invention, the shipment planning device performs an allocation process between product order information and inventory information related to the inventory of the product. If the inventory quantity is insufficient, the order information and the production plan for the product are stored. Provision is made between information. The allocation process is performed in consideration of the expiration date and delivery date of the product.

  According to the present invention, even when the expiration date is different for each delivery destination and product, the expiration date requested by the delivery destination and the quantity of the product can be shipped.

  A shipment planning apparatus according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. The shipping plan planning apparatus of this example includes an information input unit 101 for inputting order information, inventory information, production plan information, and delivery deadline information, an order information storage unit 102 for storing order information, and inventory information for storing inventory information. A storage unit 103; a production plan information storage unit 104 that stores production plan information; a delivery deadline information storage unit 105 that stores delivery deadline information; an allocation processing unit 106 that performs the allocation process and creates a production plan; and a production that outputs a production plan It has the plan output part 107 and the production plan memory | storage part 108 which memorize | stores a production plan.

  FIG. 2 shows an example of order information stored in the order information storage unit 102. The order information indicates a shipping request from the market or the like, and includes an order identification code 201, a shipping request item 202, the remaining days 203 until the shipping date, a shipping request amount 204, and a delivery destination 205.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of inventory information stored in the inventory information storage unit 103. The inventory information indicates the current inventory quantity of the shipping request item, and includes the inventory identification code 301, the inventory item 302, the inventory quantity 303, and the remaining days 304 until the expiration date. The expiration date refers to the last date that ensures the maintenance of the properties of the item, such as the expiration date, expiration date, and expiration date.

  FIG. 4 shows an example of production plan information stored in the production plan information storage unit 104. The production plan information indicates a future production schedule of the shipping request item. The production plan identification code 401, the production schedule item 402, the remaining days 403 until the completion date, the production quantity 404, and the remaining days 405 until the expiration date. including. In this example, for product X, the number of days stored in the number of remaining days 405 until the expiration date is a value obtained by adding 40 days to the number of days stored in the number of remaining days 403 until the scheduled completion date. Therefore, it can be seen that the expiration date of the product X is 40 days. The number of days stored in the remaining days 403 until the scheduled completion date of the production plan information is the same as the number of days stored in the remaining days 304 until the expiration date of the inventory information. Therefore, the production plan is created so that the production of the product is completed when the remaining days until the expiration date becomes zero.

  FIG. 5 shows an example of the delivery deadline information stored in the delivery deadline information storage unit 105. The delivery deadline information indicates a delivery deadline restriction condition set for each customer and for each product. The delivery deadline information in this example includes a delivery destination 501 and a delivery deadline 502 as shown in the figure. The delivery deadline 502 is “the remaining number of days from delivery until the expiration date”. The delivery deadline 502 may be determined from required specifications for each delivery destination, or may be determined from the convenience of the order for each order. In this example, it is “when determined from required specifications for each delivery destination”.

  In the above example, the remaining days 203 until the shipping date, the remaining days 304 until the expiration date, the remaining days 403 until the scheduled completion date, and the remaining days 405 until the expiration date are stored. May store the year, month and day of the year.

  Next, processing in the allocation processing unit 106 will be described with reference to FIG. In step S601, an allocation target item list that is a list of items stored in the order information storage unit 102 is created. FIG. 9 shows a basic configuration of the allocation target item list.

  A method of creating the allocation target item list will be described. Basically, the product names stored in the shipping request item 202 of the order information storage unit 102 are registered in the allocation target item list one by one in ascending order of the remaining days 203 until the shipping date. Check whether the item to be registered is unregistered in the allocation target item list, and register only the unregistered item. That is, a plurality of records of the same item do not exist in the allocation target item list.

  In step S602, it is determined whether or not the allocation process in step S603 has been executed for all items registered in the allocation target item list. If the allocation process has not been executed for all items, the process advances to step S603 to execute the allocation process. Details of step S603 will be described with reference to FIG. When the allocation process is executed for all items, a new production plan is created and registered in the production plan information storage unit 104 in step S604. The record newly registered in the production plan information storage unit 104 is output to the production plan storage unit 108 via the production plan output unit 107.

  Next, the allocation process in step S603 will be described in detail with reference to FIG. The allocation processing in this example is executed by the allocation processing unit 106. In step S701, the allocation processing unit 106 searches the order information storage unit 102 to extract all orders having the same item as the item selected from the allocation target item list. Actually, the code name of the order identification code 201 is extracted. Hereinafter, the order is simply extracted.

  In step S702, it is determined whether the following allocation process has been executed for all orders extracted in step S701. When the allocation process is executed for all orders, the process proceeds to step S707. If the allocation process has not been executed for all orders, an order with a small number of remaining days 203 until the shipment date is selected, and the process proceeds to step S703. The order extracted at this step is called a processing order.

  In step S703, the delivery deadline information storage unit 105 is searched to extract the delivery deadline 502 of the customer of the delivery destination 205 of the processing order. The delivery deadline 502 extracted in this step is called an applicable delivery deadline. In step S704, the inventory information storage unit 103 and the production plan information storage unit 104 are searched to select inventory information and production plan information having the same item as the shipping request item 202 of the processing order. Extract one that satisfies one condition. The inventory information and production plan information extracted in this step will be referred to as an allocatable resource group.

(Condition 1)
Inventory information with an inventory quantity 303 of 1 or more and production plan information with an estimated production quantity 404 of 1 or more

(Condition 2)
Production plan information in which the number of remaining days 403 until the scheduled completion date is the same as or less than the number of remaining days 203 until the shipment date of the processing order

(Condition 3)
Inventory information and production plan information in which the remaining days 304 and 405 until the expiration date are the same as or larger than the “remaining days 203 until the shipment date of the processing order + the applicable delivery deadline 502 + the movement days from shipment to delivery”

  In step S705, it is determined whether the requested shipping amount 204 of the processing order is zero or whether the following processing has been executed for all the resources that can be allocated. When the shipping request amount 204 of the processing order is zero or when the following processing is executed for all the reservable resources, the process proceeds to step S707, and otherwise, the process proceeds to step S706.

  In step S706, an allocation process is performed between the processing order and the allocation available resource extracted in step S704, and an allocation resource is selected. First, in step S706-1, the requested shipping amount of the processing order is compared with the resource quantity that can be allocated. The allocatable resource quantity is a value stored in the inventory quantity 303 when the allocatable resource is inventory, and is a value stored in the scheduled production quantity 404 when the allocatable resource is a production plan. . If the requested shipping amount of the processing order is greater than or equal to the quantity of resources that can be allocated, the requested shipping amount is rewritten by the following equation in step S706-2.

(Equation 1)
New shipment request quantity = Current shipment request quantity-Available resource quantity

  If the requested shipping amount of the processing order is smaller than the amount of resources that can be allocated, the shipping request amount and the allocated resource amount are rewritten by the following formula in step S706-3.

(Equation 2)
New shipment requirement = 0
New available resource quantity = available resource quantity-shipping request quantity

  In step S707, registration processing is performed. As a result of steps S705 and S706, if the new shipment request amount 204 is 1 or more, that is, if the available resource group is insufficient, a new production plan is created based on the shortage quantity, and the production plan information is stored. Register to the unit 104.

  The items included in the production plan information to be created include the production plan identification code 401 newly created for the new plan, the production planned item 402 for the new plan, the shipping request item 202 for the processing order, and the planned completion date for the new plan. The number of remaining days 403, the number of remaining days 203 until the shipment date of the processing order, the planned production quantity 404 of the new plan set from the shortage quantity, the remaining number of days 405 until the expiration date of the product by the new plan, and the like. The number of remaining days 405 until the expiration date is set by the number of remaining days until the scheduled completion date + the number of days for maintaining the quality of the item.

  FIG. 8 is an example of order information, inventory information, production plan information, and delivery deadline information regarding the product X. An example of the allocation process in FIG. 7 will be described with reference to FIG. In this example, it is assumed that “the number of days of travel from shipment to delivery” included in Condition 3 is zero.

  In step S701, the product X is selected from the allocation target item list. The order information storage unit 102 is searched to obtain order # 1 and order # 2 as orders including the product X.

  In step S702, in the example of FIG. 8, order # 1 with the remaining number of days 203 until the shipment date is first processed.

  In step S703, the delivery deadline information storage unit 105 is searched to extract the delivery deadline of the delivery destination “customer α” of order # 1. In the example of FIG. 5, “remaining days from delivery to expiration date: 7 days or more”.

  In step S704, for order # 1, the reservable resources satisfying condition 1 are inventory # 1 to # 2 and production plans # 1 to # 3, and the reservable resource satisfying condition 2 is production plan # 1. Furthermore, as condition 3, it is necessary to have the remaining number of days until the expiration date which is equal to or larger than 21 days, which is 14 days, which is the remaining number of days 203 until the shipping date, plus seven delivery deadlines. Resources that can be allocated that satisfy such conditions are inventory # 2 and production plan # 1. The resources that can be allocated that satisfy all of conditions 1 to 3 are inventory # 2 and production plan # 1.

  In step S705, when both the inventory and the production plan are available as resources that can be allocated, the inventory is preferentially selected. Therefore, the stock # 2 is a resource that can be allocated.

  In step S706, the requested shipping amount of the processing order is 5, and the resources that can be allocated, that is, the inventory quantity of inventory # 2, is 5. Therefore, the requested shipping quantity is changed from 5 to 0, and the inventory quantity of inventory # 2 Is updated from 5 to 0. At this point, the shipping request amount for order # 1 is zero, so the processing is terminated and the process proceeds to the next order information.

  The process returns to step S702. Next, the order # 2 with the earliest remaining number 203 until the shipment date is set as the processing order.

  In step S703, the delivery deadline information storage unit 105 is searched to extract the delivery deadline of the delivery destination “customer β” of order # 2. In the example of FIG. 5, “remaining days from delivery to expiration date: 30 days or more”.

  In step S704, regarding order # 2, the resources that can be allocated satisfying condition 1 are inventory # 1 and production plans # 1 to # 3. This is because the stock quantity of stock # 2 is zero. Resources that can be allocated satisfying condition 2 are production plans # 1 to # 2. As condition 3, it is necessary to have the remaining number of days until the expiration date equal to or larger than 58 days obtained by adding the delivery time limit of 30 days to 28 days, which is the number of days remaining until the shipping date. The resource that can be allocated that satisfies such conditions is the production plan # 2. An allocatable resource that satisfies all the conditions 1 to 3 is the production plan # 2.

  In step S705, the following processing is executed using the production plan # 2 as an available resource. In step S706, the requested shipping amount for process order # 2 is 10, and the resources that can be allocated, that is, the planned production quantity for production plan # 2 is 5, so the requested shipping amount is changed from 10 to 5 production plans. Update the planned production volume of # 2 from 5 to 0. The requested number of shipments becomes 5, and the process returns to step S705 to shift to the next resource that can be allocated.

  In step S705, the requested shipping quantity is five, not zero. However, since the next inventory information and production plan are not included in the available resource group, the process proceeds to step 707.

  In step S707, order # 2 leaves the requested amount of shipment 5 and has completed the allocation process, so a new production plan is added to the production plan information storage unit 104.

  The new production plan uses the production plan # 4 as the new plan code, the product X as the new plan item, 28 days as the remaining number of days until the completion date of the new plan, 5 pieces as the planned production quantity of the new plan, and use of the new plan The number of remaining days until the deadline is 68 days = 28 days + 40 days.

  According to the present invention, it is possible to devise a shipping plan that guarantees the expiration date constraint based on the nature of the item itself or the required specification of the shipping request source. This can be expected to reduce returns and complaints from the market. And since the production plan is added in advance for the shortage, it can contribute to prevention of delivery delay.

  According to the present invention, among the inventory existing at the inventory base, in response to a shipment request from the market, “amount of inventory that can be shipped”, “a quantity that cannot be shipped because there is a shipment request but the expiration date constraint cannot be satisfied” , “The amount that is not shipped without the shipping request itself” can be grasped.

  For this reason, it is possible to take countermeasures in advance and systematically, for example, for “unshipable quantities” and “unshipped quantities” by conducting a campaign before the product expiration date and encouraging consumption of inventory. . As a result, it is possible to expect reduction such as discarding after the expiration date expires.

It is a figure which shows the structural example of the shipping plan planning apparatus by this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of order information in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of the inventory information in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of the production plan information in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a definition of the delivery time limit information in this invention. It is a figure which shows the flow of a process of the allocation process part in this invention. It is a figure which shows the detailed flow of the allocation process in this invention. It is the conceptual diagram which showed the setting example of the order information in this invention, inventory information, production plan information, delivery deadline information, and the resource which can allocate order information. It is a figure which shows the example of an allocation object item list.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 100 ... Shipment plan planning apparatus, 101 ... Information input part, 102 ... Order information storage part, 103 ... Inventory information storage part, 104 ... Production plan information storage part, 105 ... Delivery term information storage part, 106 ... Provision process part, 107 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS ... Production plan output part 108 ... Production plan storage part 201 ... Order identification code, 202 ... Shipment request item, 203 ... Remaining number of days until shipment date, 204 ... Shipment request quantity, 205 ... Delivery destination, 301 ... Inventory identification code , 302 ... inventory items, 303 ... inventory quantity, 304 ... remaining days until expiration date, 401 ... production plan identification code, 402 ... production schedule items, 403 ... remaining days until completion date, 404 ... production schedule quantities, 405 ... Number of remaining days until expiration date, 501 ... Delivery destination, 502 ... Delivery deadline

Claims (5)

  An order information storage unit that stores order information related to product orders, an inventory information storage unit that stores inventory information related to product inventory, a production plan information storage unit that stores production plan information related to product production, and product delivery A delivery deadline information storage unit for storing deadline delivery deadline information and an allocation process between the order information and the inventory information. If the inventory quantity is insufficient, the order information and the production plan information And a provisioning processing unit that performs provisioning processing between the products, and the provisioning processing unit performs the provisioning processing in consideration of a product use deadline and the delivery deadline.   2. The shipping plan planning device according to claim 1, wherein the allocation processing unit formulates a production plan based on the shortage when a shortage occurs in the requested shipping amount included in the order information by the allocation processing. A shipping planning device characterized by:   3. The shipping plan planning apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the allocation processing unit includes, in the inventory information, when the delivery deadline information specifies "the number of remaining days of use after delivery". If the remaining number of days until the expiration date of the inventory product to be used is larger than the number of remaining days specified in the delivery deadline information, the inventory is reserved for the order information, and the product to be completed included in the production plan information is used. A shipping plan planning device, wherein the production plan is allocated for the order information when the number of remaining days until the deadline is larger than the number of remaining days specified in the delivery deadline information. An order information input step for inputting order information related to the product order;
An inventory information input step for entering inventory information related to product inventory;
A production plan information input step for inputting production plan information related to product production;
A delivery deadline information input step for entering delivery deadline information relating to the delivery deadline of the product;
An allocation process step of performing an allocation process between the order information and the inventory information and performing an allocation process between the order information and the production plan information when the inventory quantity is insufficient;
And the allocation process step performs the allocation process in consideration of a product use deadline and the delivery deadline.   A computer-readable program for causing a computer to execute the shipment planning method according to claim 4.

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