Use case / On-time delivery
Find resin orders that need a delivery review.
Bring customer dates, resin availability, quality holds, and production progress together before confirming an order.
Make the reason for the flag visible
An at-risk queue should explain why a job needs review. Compare its due date with the remaining routing, recorded progress, material availability, and known holds. A past-due open operation is a direct exception. A future due date with incomplete capacity information requires a more qualified answer.
Agree with the planner on what each flag means. “Blocked by material” needs an unmet requirement and a need-by date. “Progress needs confirmation” means the latest record is too old for the review cadence. A rules-based flag can organize the review, but it does not establish a measured probability of late delivery.
Illustrative sample: resin order DEMO-1042
This fictional record demonstrates the decision method. At Wednesday’s review, DEMO-1042 is due Friday. The required HDPE lot is reserved, but its quality release has no completion event and an incoming replenishment has no confirmed receipt. The planner should review both dependencies before accepting the delivery promise.
The answer is “Needs review: lot release and replenishment receipt are unresolved.” It includes the ERP due-date record, the lot hold, and the purchasing confirmation state. Quality owns the release review; purchasing owns the supplier confirmation. No risk percentage is assigned because this example has no validated prediction model.
| Signal | Illustrative value | Review consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Customer due date | Friday | Confirm remaining work fits the promise |
| Lot release | Not recorded | Ask quality for confirmation |
| Resin receipt | Unconfirmed | Buyer checks the dependency |
| Last inventory update | Wednesday, 08:20 shop time | Show age at each review |
Use stable identifiers and explicit time rules
The minimum mapping includes order ID, open quantity, due date, operation sequence, operation state, material requirement, and source update time. Store the customer due date separately from internal operation targets. A schedule that ends at machining can miss inspection, packing, or outside processing.
Link records through validated keys, including split orders and revised routings. Define the shop calendar and timezone before comparing dates. Show when the source event happened and when it was retrieved. If the feed stops updating, retain the last known state with a warning and route the freshness problem to the responsible system owner.
Route the exception to a human decision
An alert should carry the job, reason, source age, and review owner. Decide how acknowledgments, duplicate alerts, and resolved blockers are handled. A missing material confirmation may warrant a buyer check before the planner changes the schedule. Changes to customer dates or commitments require the shop’s approved process.
Validate the queue against a sample of actual reviews. Check flags caused by late postings, canceled operations, partial completions, and stock assigned elsewhere. Record why a reviewer dismissed a flag so the mapping or rule can be corrected. An unflagged job remains dependent on the completeness of the records checked.
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