Shortages & Impact
A shortage is recorded whenever an item's projected availability goes negative on a future date. The Shortages screen is the working queue of every open gap; the Impact Analysis then shows the full downstream damage of any one shortage so you can resolve it with confidence.
For how shortages are calculated and graded, see Supply-Demand Intelligence (Overview).
Where to Access
- Shortage List —
/sdi/shortages(or View All from the SDI Dashboard shortage cards). - Impact Analysis —
/sdi/shortage/:id/impact(from any shortage's View Impact action).
Shortage List
Filters
Filter the queue by Item, Location, and Severity (Critical / High / Medium / Low). Use Clear Filters to reset.
Columns
- Severity — color-coded badge by urgency.
- Item and Location
- On Hand — current stock (red when ≤ 0)
- Demand — total demand in the window
- Short Qty — units short (red)
- Date — the shortage date
- Impact — affected sales orders and work orders
- Revenue at Risk — value of threatened sales orders
- Action — the suggested resolution button
Row actions
- Create PO — opens a purchase order pre-filled with the item, short quantity, preferred vendor, and location.
- Create WO — opens a work order pre-filled with the item, short quantity, and location.
- Expedite — for shortages best resolved by speeding up existing supply.
- View Impact — opens the impact analysis (below).
Batch: select multiple shortages and click Create N POs to send them to the Multi-PO Creator.
Shortage status
- Open — detected, not yet being worked.
- Resolving — a PO/WO has been created to cover it (set automatically when you create a PO from the shortage).
- Resolved — incoming supply now covers the gap.
- Accepted — acknowledged and intentionally left as-is.
Impact Analysis
Opening a shortage's impact view answers "if I don't fix this, what breaks?"
Header summary
- Severity, units short, and shortage date.
- Days Until Impact — how soon it bites (red when ≤ 3 days).
- Root Cause — Lead Time, Vendor Delay, Capacity, Quality, or Demand Spike.
- Suggested Action — Create Purchase Order, Create Work Order, Expedite, or Substitute.
Impact Chain
A timeline that traces the shortage outward:
- Source — the short item itself.
- Affected parent items — assemblies that can't be built because this component is short (with the quantity that can't be built and the demand source).
- Sales Orders at risk — order number, customer, quantity affected, due date, and revenue at risk, marked AT RISK.
- Work Orders blocked — order number, item, quantity affected, and due date, marked BLOCKED.
If nothing downstream is affected, the chain says so explicitly.
Revenue Impact
- Total Revenue at Risk for this shortage.
- Counts of SOs Affected and WOs Affected.
Affected Sales Orders table
Order, customer, quantity affected, due date, and revenue — each row links straight to the sales order so you can review or expedite it.
Resolution Options
Context-aware buttons based on the suggested action:
- Create PO for N units (opens the Multi-PO Creator)
- Create WO for N units
- Expedite Existing Orders
- Make vs Buy Analysis — shown for assemblies; opens the Make vs Buy comparison.
Cascading Impacts
If the shortage starves other items further down the supply chain, those secondary shortages are listed here, each linking to its own impact view — so you can fix the whole chain, not just the first link.
Tips
- Sort your effort by Revenue at Risk, not just severity — a near-term shortage on a cheap item may matter less than a slightly later one blocking a large order.
- Use the Impact Chain before resolving an assembly shortage; the cheapest fix is sometimes a component PO, sometimes a make-vs-buy switch.
- Creating a PO from a shortage automatically moves it to Resolving, so the queue reflects work in progress.