For anyone wanting to write Crystal Reports or any other business intelligence against Infor VISUAL Manufacturing, understanding the DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK table is crucial but often overlooked table. Conceptually it is easy to understand but digging into it deeper can provide even further insight and analysis into your fulfillment information.

As the name implies, the table's purpose is to provide a link between demand agents and supply agents. So an example would be linking work orders to customer orders assuming that you build to order and not build to stock. In this case, the CUST_ORDER_LINE (customer order line) table will be the demand agent and the WORK_ORDER (work order) table will be the supply agent. So the customer order is creating the demand to be fulfilled by the work order.

Now the linking for WORK_ORDER is pretty straight forward. We join from the BASE_ID, LOT_ID, SPLIT_ID, and SUB_ID from WORK_ORDER to the matching SUPPLY field in the DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK table. So WORK_ORDER.BASE_ID would join to DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK.SUPPLY_BASE_ID. The linking to CUST_ORDER_LINE is a little different because the field names don't match exactly. In this case CUST_ORDER_LINE.CUST_ORDER_ID links to DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK.DEMAND_BASE_ID and CUST_ORDER_LINE.LINE_NO links to DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK.DEMAND_SEQ _NO.

So in that example, it's possible to link the work order that fulfills a customer order line. This table also links purchase orders required for work orders. So by adding the table in twice, it is possible to see the link between purchase orders and the customer orders consuming those parts. In this case, the purchase order would be the supply agent to a work order as the demand agent. And then you link the work order as a supply agent to the customer order as the demand agent.

This provides a basic understanding of some of what is possible with the DEMAND_SUPPLY_LINK table, but there is much more. Gaining a firm understanding of this table can provide a lot of additional analysis possibilities.

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