Process: Receive inventory
Flow
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Objective
Receive inventory, thereby making it available (on-hand) to customers.
Description
This process is used for receiving inventory. The inventory is either inventory that is expected, for which an expected-inventory record has or will be created, or it is ad-hoc inventory.
This process is followed when inventory arrives from a vendor or supplier in one of two cases:
1. The inventory had been expected -- that is, an expected-inventory record already exists in the system.
2. The inventory had not been expected -- that is, no expected inventory record exists in the system.
The receiver will examine the goods and make a determination as to whether the goods should be accepted and stocked in the warehouse or fulfillment center.
If they are not, the process terminates. Otherwise, the items in the inventory system will be found using the information, such as the received goods invoice, provided with the goods. If the items are not found in the inventory system, they will be handled by an external exception process for items received that are not in the inventory system. Using the found inventory items, expected-inventory records for the items are searched for. If expected-inventory records are found, the expected-inventory records are updated to indicate the quantity received and this results in the creation of a receipt in the inventory system. If there are no expected-inventory records found, this is an ad-hoc receipt and will result in the creation of a receipt in the inventory system.
Features
- Available to promise
- Ad-hoc receipts
- Expected inventory receipts
Customization
Receipt information may be recorded automatically using a feed from a back-end or warehouse system.
Edition
Professional, Enterprise
Subprocesses
Tasks
Task Description Role Examine goods for disposition (external) The received goods are examined by receiver for dispositioning.
Receiver Find inventory item This task will find inventory known to the system given either a part number or partial match on a short description. The output is a list that matches the request.
Receiver Handle item received and not found (external) This is an external task that would handle receiving an item that was not known to the inventory system. There are many possibilities as to how this could be handled, and they are business dependent.
Receiver Receive goods (external) The goods are received by a receiver in the warehouse.
Receiver View expected inventory records This is task is used to view expected inventory records to see if the inventory item is one that is expected. A purchase order ID or some other identifier present with the items that can be used to correlate the received item to the expected inventory record.
Receiver
Business artifacts
- Expected inventory record
- Goods
- Inventory item
- Inventory item list
- Inventory receipt
- Received goods invoice
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