Safety stock settings
The four settings that protect a product against stockouts and overstock: buffer level, lower limit, supply buffer policy, and My stock max.
On top of its inventory strategy, a product has four settings that decide how much protection it gets:
Buffer level: how safe you want to be, as a percentage.
Lower limit: the minimum stock Flowlity never goes below.
Supply buffer policy: how to protect yourself against late suppliers.
My stock max: when Flowlity should warn you that you hold too much.
You set them in the Inventory tab of the Product strategy panel. See Configure your inventory strategy.
The Flowlity Min and Flowlity Max
In Planning, the Flowlity Min is the dynamic safety stock of the product and the Flowlity Max its upper bound. Your stock should stay between the two. When it does not, the product gets a Below Flowlity min or Above Flowlity max alert. See How Flowlity calculates Stock Min.
Buffer level
The Buffer level is your service level: the share of the demand and supply risk you want the stock to cover. The higher the buffer level, the higher the Flowlity Min, and the less often you run out.
With Demand-based - Flowlity AI, you choose a value between 50% and 99.9%. Between 99% and 99.9%, you can set it in steps of 0.1%.
With Reorder point + AI, the buffer level sizes the reorder point that Flowlity computes.
Your Customer Success Manager sets the default buffer level for your site.
Lower limit
The Lower limit is a floor for the Flowlity Min. Turn on Add lower limit, then fill in a Quantity, a Coverage in days, or both. At least one field must be filled.
It applies only to the Demand-based - Flowlity AI and Reorder point + AI sources. Use it when you want Flowlity's dynamic minimum, but never less than, for example, 14 days of coverage.
Supply buffer policy
The Supply buffer policy protects you against suppliers that deliver late. There are three policies:
None: no protection against delays.
Time: Flowlity plans the delivery dates of the orders ahead of the date you need the stock.
Stock: Flowlity raises the Flowlity Min to absorb the delays. Only products with the Demand-based - Flowlity AI source can use it.
The delay to cover is a number of days. Each strategy has a default policy for your site, set in Buffer policy settings. On a product, keep Use default policy on to follow that default, or turn it off to choose the policy and the Delay coverage in days, for All suppliers or Per supplier. Flowlity can show Recommended by Flowlity values for the delay, with the share of risk they cover.
When a product has a policy, the Planning header shows a Time buffer or Buffer Stock tag.
My stock max
My stock max is a value you set as a Quantity or a Coverage in days (or None). When the stock goes above it, the product gets an Above My stock max alert. My stock max does not act as a constraint: Flowlity does not reduce orders to stay below it.
Example
A supplier often delivers about five days late, and the product uses Demand-based - Flowlity AI:
With Stock and a delay of 5 days, Flowlity raises the Flowlity Min so that a late delivery does not leave you out of stock.
With Time and a delay of 5 days, Flowlity plans the deliveries earlier instead, so that the stock arrives before you need it.
Changing many products at once
Select products in the Demand or Planning list and choose Edit product strategy in the actions menu. Then pick what to change: Strategy type, Lower limit, Supply buffer policy or My stock max. For the buffer level, choose Adjust by to shift the current values, or Exact value to set the same value everywhere.
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