Information Systems:ISS - Item Substitution and Suggestion

This system does two things; automatically change an ordered item to a replacement or class 010, or suggest an alternative to an out of stock or discontinued item.

- File ISSMASP (ISS - Substitution master), also referred to as ‘source’, lists all items that have substitutions or suggestions.

- File ISSDTLP (ISS - Substitution master), also referred to as ‘target’, lists all the items that the source item points to, and whether they are automatic substitutions or suggestions.

- RPG program ISRUT500 (ISS -- See if substitution to occur) is the black box that does all checks for substitutions. It receives item, customer, quantity, and date, then, if applicable, returns the substitution item.

- RPG program ISRUT550 (ISS -- Check for alternate item suggestions) is the black box that does all checks for suggestions. It receives item, customer, quantity, and date, then, if applicable, returns up to 50 suggestions.

The high level process is –

ISRUT500

- Check the user defined fields for the customer to see if they allow automatic substitutions for either generic items (class 010), or replacements for discontinued items. - See if this item is in file ISSMASP. - If it is, read ISSDTLP to get target item. Check that it is a valid substitution based on options on record. - If so, check if the target item is itself a source. If so, look for a valid target. - Continue reading ISSDTLP until the first valid substitution is found.

ISRUT550

- See if this item is in file ISSMASP. - If it is, read ISSDTLP to get target item. Check that it is a valid suggestion based on options on record. - If it is, add to array of items to return to calling program. - Continue reading all targets items from ISSDTLP.