Purchase planning for importers who buy by container

The situation

An importer of umbrellas and rain gear buys from three factories in China and one in Vietnam. Production plus sea freight takes about 12 weeks door to door. Each factory has a minimum order value and packs in cartons of 24 or 48. The buyer plans once a month from the ERP export.

How POplanner plans it

• Reorder point from the lead time. Set 12 weeks per supplier. An item is reordered when its stock lasts less than the lead time plus your safety margin, not when it hits a fixed minimum.
• Order up to a cover target. Choose how long each order should last, for example 5 months. POplanner orders the gap between stock plus incoming orders and that target.
• Full cartons. Quantities round up to the carton size from your export.
• Most urgent first. Each supplier order is sorted by low stock and best earners, so if the container is full, the lines that stay behind are the ones that can wait.
• Incoming stock counted. Orders already placed come from the export or the PO tracker, so nothing is ordered twice.
• Air as a fallback. When a season's sea date has passed, Seasons ahead shows the air date (4 weeks by default) for the items that still need to make it.

What the buyer gets

One Excel file per factory, in full cartons, with order value and units, ready to send. Each line keeps its reason, so a question from the factory or from finance is answered from the line itself.