Allocation constraints

You can use the 3 allocation constraint tables to control the allocation of sourcing, transportation, production, and warehousing. You define the percentage relationship between two individual or sets of entities:

• Flow Allocation Constraints - Use this table to constrain the allocation of flow to specific sources, destinations, products, periods, and modes. You can use these constraints to control both sourcing and transportation.

• Inventory Allocation Constraints - Use this table to constrain the allocation of inventory to specific sites, products, and periods.

• Production Allocation Constraints - Use this table to constrain the allocation of production to specific sites, products, periods, processes and BOMs.

Allocation constraint examples

Allocation constraints can be defined to control behavior such as the following:

Production

• At least 60% of the total production quantity of a site per period has to be for a given product.

• No more than 60% of the total production quantity for a product can be allocated to a set of sites.

• Exactly 50% of the production weight for a set of products must be done on a specific process.

• If a site produces a product set it must produce at least 20% of the product set's total volume over the horizon.

Transportation

• No more than 30% of a customers flow quantity can come from any site.

• Exactly 20% of the last mile flow weight must be on a particular mode.

• If a mode is used, it must carry 30% of the total network flow weight outbound from plants.

Inventory

• At least 30% of the inventory quantity for a product must be at a particular site.

• No more than 50% of the total inventory quantity can be in any site for a given product.

• 60% of the total inventory volume must be at DC locations.

Sourcing

• No more than 30% of a customers flow quantity can come from any site.

For example, you can define a constraint that requires:

The flow quantity through the sites specified by MexicoSites has to be at least 40% of the flow quantity through all sites.

In this case you define a set containing the sites in Mexico and evaluate it against a filter column where the value contains all sites. The constraint is defined with a Percentage (the set compared to the filter), a constraint Type (Min, Max, Fixed, Cond_Min, Cond_Fixed) and a Basis (Quantity, Weight, or Volume).