Fulfillment

Fulfillment means all process to fulfill demand of an internal party or a customer party! Demand is created by internal orders or customer orders.

Filling demand can be broken down into three tasks/questions:

• Disposition task - Where to get the goods from?
• Customization task (optional) - How to get the goods into the desired state?
• Deliery task - How to get the goods to the place of demand?

Where to get the goods from?

Whenever demand exists, disposition has three choices to get the goods demanded:

• Have - Fill the demand from intra-organization stock. Eventually wait for outstanding production or purchase orders bound to intra-organization stock as expected shipments.
• Buy - Purchase the goods with a supplier/vendor through creation of a purchase order
• Make - Produce the required goos

How to get the goods into the desired state?

This optional question aims towards customization of products according to to the demand of the customers. Typically this demand is filled by:

• In-Process-Services - These are typically simple services, which are performed to the items to be fulfilled directly as part of or right after the picking process, before delivery process starts.
• Explicit supply chain handling - When the desired state cannot be created as part of the picking process, other external parties or production must be involved. This requires explicit supply chain handling and supervision eventually spanning over multiple parties.

How to get the goods to the place of demand?

Once it is clear where and when the goods are available the next issue is to deliver them to the place of demand of the internal or external customer. Generally there are these options:

• IntraOrg pickup - Pickup by customer at intra-organization pickup station
• 3rd party pickup - Pickup by customer at 3rd party pickup station
• Postal delivery - Direct delivery to a postal address
• IntraOrg delivery - Direct delivery to a company mail address - this option is only available for intra-organization demand

You can read in this article how the delivery process is governed.

In many cases the customer makes a pre-decision on the preferred delivery option, which is documented in the internal or customer order and must be considered, when definiting the final delivery option.