Directory:Introduction to Order Fulfillment Process

Order Fulfillment can be defined as the activities that take place from the moment a buyer/customer places an order until that order has been delivered in full. How well your order fulfillment process functions is a critical determinant of how well you satisfy, and therefore retain, your customers. So order fulfillment plays a crucial role in supply chain management, and many consider it the most important business process.

The fulfillment process can be used for both inbound (buying) and outbound (selling) fulfillment. At the strategic level, eBuilder Order Fulfillment's Business Intelligence Portal enables you to manage global network KPIs, follow trends, and analyze and identify bottlenecks. The eBuilder BI Portal is a strategic management service with an online´tool designed to consolidate a very large amount of data collected from thousands of actors and systems around the world and turn it into simple, intuitive, and powerful decision-making material.

At the tactical level, the Process Monitor gives the user real-time visibility across the complete order fulfillment process. Exceptions are identified as they occur (SLA time or condition based) and are displayed in an interactive dashboard. The user can drill down to a more detailed view on a specific actor type (e.g., a hub or service center), and further down to an individual order to view its details and content.

At the operational level, the Order Manager manages the order flow, order content, and information validations; as well as the standard order fulfillment entities with their process, events, and states. The Order Manager web interfaces consists of order dashboards that, among other things, provide the ability to cross-reference and search based on various criteria.

Also at the operational level, the Transport Manager takes care of automated processing of orders into shipments based on configured routing, carrier, and rules. It creates the required shipping documents for integrated carriers and sends electronic bookings to the carrier. Status retrieval and integration to order status and event history are also included.

The operational level is further supported by the Network Optimization Manager, a state-of-the-art network process optimization function that indexes process actors (such as warehouses, carriers, suppliers, etc.) and optimizes the path through the process based on set business rules. It works in real time for each transaction, providing optimization from end to end.

Related Links - order fulfillment process after sales process reverse logistics management