We’re calling off what we ordered, we’re ordering what we called off! Call-offs. A word (and above all process) that, while perhaps mysterious, must be learned in order to survive and succeed in automotive. But what really is the magic of this word? And what about the rest of the words in the full spell, like “delay”, “immediate need”, and “cumulative quantities”?
In the ideal world, the customer and supplier would just agree in advance on needed goods and their delivery dates. But turbulence in the industry and in our times force the industry to respond to constant changes. Thus in automotive, call-offs (sometimes called LAB or Forecasts) are used for specifying required deliveries. These are messages that offer an overview of a longer period, making them essential documents when planning production and purchasing. But call-offs can also change over time. Or more precisely: as the due date comes closer, they’re made more precise. To plan production, dispatching and invoicing correctly, it’s important to know how to process these messages and pass on their data to other systems so that the final result meets the customer’s requirements.
If you only have to handle call-offs for a single customer, then processing the data manually may be fairly easy. But once you start supplying multiple automakers or their suppliers, things get complicated. That’s because every automaker has different demands on data structure – although actually, even the messages for different products from a single customer can vary, despite their use of widespread EDI standards. In that situation, a special system for interchanging data electronically and processing it automatically is a necessity.
| Date / version | 6. 2. | 13. 2. | 20. 2 | 27. 2 | 6. 3. | 13. 3. | 20. 3. | 27. 3. | 3. 4. |
| 1.1 | 100 | 50 | 80 | 90 | 150 | 20 | 50 | 80 | 200 |
| 1.2 | 70 | 80 | 100 | 100 | 50 | 150 | 80 | 200 |
A simplified example of how call-offs can change over time.
Call-offs also provide information on e.g. backlogs and immediate needs. A backlog arises when you haven’t delivered your products to the automaker by the deadline. This may mean a detail that you can handle with the customer’s logistics team, but in the extreme case it can mean an express air shipment.
Another non-standard situation that can arrive in the automotive industry is a call-off about an immediate need. This appears when an automaker discovers that it’s lacking components and needs to acquire them ASAP to keep production flowing. Here as well it sends its suppliers an EDI message – with a request for a special delivery.
The last term that we want to present in connection with call-offs is cumulative quantities. To learn how many products the customer has already accepted, how many are on the way, and how many you still need to deliver, you use automotive call-offs’ cumulative quantities, which will help you to monitor this information or calculate it in your ERP system. A special EDI system will put together a complete report so that your employees will be able to work on activities other than just retyping data from various systems. Not to mention how it cuts back on human error.