How to Set Safety Stock in EDGEBIC

To set safety stock in EDGEBIC, you enter a buffer level on the product and the projection warns you whenever the projected balance falls below it. In EDGEBIC by User Solutions safety stock is compared against the projected available balance in every planning bucket, and buckets that breach it turn red. This post covers the field, what the red cells actually mean, and the one choice that changes its behavior: trigger versus hard floor.

Safety stock is one piece of the replenishment picture. For how buffers, demand and suggestions work together, read forecasting and replenishment explained. This post is the narrow task of setting the buffer on a single product. Availability varies by installation, so check which inventory features your build exposes.

Safety stock is the buffer that absorbs the things a plan cannot predict: a supplier slipping, demand arriving early, a build running long. Setting it well is a judgment call about how much protection a part is worth, and the projection turns that judgment into a visible line. Every planning bucket is measured against the buffer, so you are not guessing whether a part is exposed; you are reading it. The discipline is to size the buffer to real variability rather than to comfort. Too low and the warnings fire too late to act; too high and you tie up cash in stock you rarely touch. The projection shows you the consequence of the number either way. Because the buffer is compared against a forward-looking balance rather than today's stock, it warns you about exposure that has not happened yet, which is exactly when a warning is still useful: a red bucket three weeks out is time to act, while a red bucket today is a problem you are already living with.

Before You Start

• The product exists and is flagged as a stocked item.
• You have a buffer figure in mind, usually enough to cover demand across your supplier or production lead time plus a margin for variability.
• You have decided whether the buffer is a warning line or a level you never want stock to drop below.

Set the Safety Stock Level

1. Open Products and edit the product, or double-click its grid row.
2. Scroll to the Inventory Planning section.
3. Enter your buffer figure in the Safety Stock field.
4. Click Save.

That is the whole configuration for a warning-style buffer. The projection now compares the projected available balance in each bucket against this level.

Trigger or Floor: The One Choice That Matters

By default, safety stock is a replenishment trigger, not a consumption floor. Stock can still be issued below the safety level; the projection simply flags the shortfall with a red bucket. This is what most planners want: an early warning that pairs with a reorder method to restock.

If you need the buffer to be a hard floor that prevents issuing below it, enable the respect-safety-stock option on the product. That turns the buffer from a warning into a limit. Reach for it only when the material genuinely cannot be drawn below the buffer, because it changes how the engine treats the buffer during netting.

What Changes When You Save

No stock moves. Safety stock is a planning parameter, so saving it changes what the projection warns about, not what is on hand. On the next projection load, any bucket where the projected balance sits below the safety level is flagged below-safety and painted red on the calendar and the inventory matrix. The projected stockout metric reports the first bucket that breaches the buffer, and the KPI strip counts products with a below-safety bucket in the horizon.

How Safety Stock Feeds the Headline Metrics

Setting a buffer changes more than the row coloring. It drives two of the four KPI cards above the calendar. The projected stockout metric reports the first bucket where the projected balance falls below the safety level, so raising the buffer moves that date earlier and lowering it moves it later. The below-safety count tallies how many buckets in the horizon breach the buffer, which is a quick read on how exposed the part is across the plan, not just at one point. A part with a single red bucket at the far edge of the horizon is a different risk from one that sits below safety for weeks, and the count captures that.

Days of cover, the third card, is independent of safety stock. It divides current on-hand by average daily demand and tells you how long stock lasts at the average rate, which is a blunter measure than the buffer comparison. Read days of cover for a gut check and the below-safety buckets for the precise picture. Together they tell you both how long you have and exactly when the plan breaches the line you drew.

How to Check It Worked

1. Open the Inventory calendar for the product.
2. Read the Below Safety flag on the projection rows, or scan the matrix on the on-hand lens for red cells.
3. Confirm the first red bucket lines up with where the projected balance first drops under the buffer you entered.
4. Glance at the KPI strip. If this product now sits below safety somewhere in the horizon, it is counted there.

If nothing turns red, the projected balance never dips below the buffer in the horizon, which means either the buffer is low relative to stock or there is little demand pulling the balance down.

Common Mistakes

• Assuming the buffer blocks issues. By default it does not. Stock can go below safety with only a warning. Enable the respect-safety-stock floor if you need a hard limit.
• Setting safety stock equal to or above the reorder point. They are separate levels. Safety stock warns; the reorder point triggers a suggestion. Set safety below the reorder point so a suggested order fires while the buffer is still intact.
• Expecting red cells to reflect today. The comparison is against the projected balance in each future bucket, not current on-hand. A product with healthy stock today can still show red buckets weeks out once demand is netted forward.
• Setting a buffer on a non-stocked product. A non-stocked product is skipped by the projection, so the safety level does nothing until the product is flagged stocked.
• Treating one distant red bucket like an emergency. A single below-safety bucket at the far edge of the horizon is a heads-up, not a crisis. Read the below-safety count and where the first red bucket falls before you react, so you match the urgency to the actual exposure.

Once the buffer is set, add a restock trigger with how to set a reorder point, understand the balance the buffer is compared against in the projected available balance explained, and browse every task in the EDGEBIC how-to library.