Availability check overview

An availability check is a very important function within sales order processing. When a customer places an order, the order makes a check to see whether the material is available in stock. Based on the inventory position, the system derives the date when the material can be shipped out. This date is then communicated to the customer as part of the order confirmation. The confirmed delivery date can be the same as the date that the customer asks for or it can be a lead time date of when that product can be produced and shipped. Many times, an organization promises getting the item shipped on time to customers and very often they are unable to get the products to the customer on time because of availability issues.

In an SAP CRM Interaction Center scenario (described in Chapter 7, Sales Document Processing in SAP CRM), the customer calls a Customer Service Representative (CSR) to place an order. The CSR enters the product, quantity, and requested delivery...