Why a Committed MPS Quantity Is Not Yet Supply in EDGEBIC

A committed MPS build quantity in EDGEBIC does not raise the projected available balance until you firm it into a real order. The committed quantity lives in its own column as a statement of intent, and the projected balance reflects only real scheduled receipts. EDGEBIC by User Solutions draws this line deliberately, because rolling an uncommitted intention into the balance would show supply that nothing is building and would double-count that supply the moment it became a real order. This post explains the separation, the three-status lifecycle behind it, and why it protects the plan.

The behavior surprises planners the first time they meet it: you commit 200 units, and the stockout you were trying to fix is still on the screen. Understanding why is the difference between trusting the grid and fighting it. For the grid as a whole, see the MPS grid as a planning cockpit; for the generic concept, see the master production schedule guide.

The Three-Status Lifecycle

Every MPS bucket moves through three states, and the state is what decides whether its quantity affects the projected balance.

A bucket with no committed quantity sits at Suggested. Committing a quantity moves it to Firm. Firming that quantity into an order moves it to Released. Only the last transition, to Released, makes the quantity real supply, because only then does an actual order exist to produce it.

Committed Is Intent, Not Supply

The heart of the design is a simple distinction: a committed quantity is what a planner decided to build, and a scheduled receipt is a real order that will build it. These are not the same thing, and the projected balance is built from real supply only.

When you commit 200 units for a bucket, that number records a decision. It does not create a manufacturing order, reserve any capacity, or produce a single unit. Nothing is coming yet. If the projected balance counted the 200, it would claim stock that no order is producing, which is exactly the kind of phantom supply that makes a plan lie. So the committed 200 sits in the MPS build column, visible and revisable, while the projected balance continues to reflect only what is genuinely inbound.

Why Not Roll It In: The Two Failure Modes

The natural instinct is to show the committed quantity in the balance so the planner sees the what-if effect. EDGEBIC deliberately does not, because doing so creates two failures.

The first is the appearance of supply that does not exist. If a commitment of 200 lifts the balance to a healthy number, the stockout disappears from the screen, and a planner who never firms the bucket walks away believing the problem is solved. It is not: no order was created, so the stock never arrives. The visible stockout is the reminder to firm, and hiding it removes the prompt to act.

The second is double-counting. Suppose the balance did count the committed 200. When the planner firms the bucket, a real build-to-stock order is created, and that order appears as a scheduled receipt on the next refresh, which also lifts the balance. Now the same 200 units are counted twice as apparent supply: once as the committed quantity and once as the firmed receipt. The balance would overstate supply by 200 until someone noticed. Keeping the committed quantity out of the balance until it is Released is what prevents this.

When the Quantity Finally Becomes Supply

The committed quantity becomes real supply at exactly one moment: when you firm the bucket and the resulting order is picked up as a scheduled receipt. Firming creates a build-to-stock order with a due date and a release date. On the next projection run, that order appears as incoming supply in the bucket where it is expected to complete, and the projected balance rises there. The status badge flips to Released and the bucket now points to the order that satisfies it.

So the sequence is: commit (status Firm, balance unchanged), firm (order created, status Released), refresh (order shows as a scheduled receipt, balance rises). The balance only ever moves on a real order, never on the committed number alone. This is the same handoff described in from sales order to MPS to schedule.

A Worked Walkthrough

Take a bucket showing a projected stockout with the system suggesting 200.

1. You accept 200 and save. The status becomes Firm, the MPS build column reads 200, and the projected balance still shows the stockout. Nothing is inbound yet, so nothing changed on the supply side.
2. You review the bucket, confident in the 200, and firm it. A build-to-stock order for 200 is created, due in the bucket, with a release date offset by the product's lead time. The status becomes Released.
3. On the next refresh, the order appears as a scheduled receipt in its completion bucket. The projected balance rises by 200, and the stockout clears.

At step 1 the stockout is still visible on purpose: it is telling you the fix is not yet real. At step 3 it clears because now it is.

What Happens If a Firmed Order Is Later Deleted

The separation between committed intent and real supply also governs what happens when a firmed order is removed. If a bucket is Released and its build-to-stock order is later cancelled or deleted, the order no longer exists to be a scheduled receipt, so the projected balance should not keep counting it. EDGEBIC handles this by detecting that a Released bucket's order no longer resolves and showing that bucket back in Firm status, so the planner can re-firm it. The committed quantity is preserved; only the link to a live order is broken.

This is the mirror image of the main rule. Just as a committed quantity does not become supply until a real order exists, a released quantity stops being supply the moment its order stops existing. The projected balance always tracks live orders, never the memory of one. The grid surfaces the broken link by demoting the badge, which is the prompt to create a fresh order and restore the receipt.

The lesson for a planner is to trust the badge as the truth about supply. A Released badge means a live order is backing the bucket. A bucket that reverts to Firm after you thought it was released is telling you the order behind it went away, and the fix is to re-firm. The balance and the badge stay consistent because both are driven by whether a real order exists, not by what was once committed.

Reading the Grid With This in Mind

Once you internalize the separation, the grid reads cleanly. The MPS build column is your intent. The projected balance is your reality. A gap between a healthy committed quantity and a still-negative balance is not a contradiction; it is a to-do, telling you the commitment has not been firmed yet. Scan for buckets that are committed but not Released inside your stockout runway, and those are the ones that still need the firm action.

This also explains why the KPI strip separates committed MPS from total suggested and keeps both distinct from the balance. Committed is what you decided, suggested is what the system recommends, and the balance is what is actually coming. Three different questions, three different columns, no double-counting between them.

The separation is not a limitation, it is the discipline that keeps the plan honest. Intent and supply are different facts, and a plan that conflates them either hides real stockouts or invents supply that never arrives. EDGEBIC keeps them apart so the projected balance always means the same thing: real stock, on real orders, on each future date.

If you take one habit from this, let it be to read the projected balance as the answer to a single question: what real stock is coming, on real orders, on each date. Nothing you have merely committed changes that answer, and nothing a deleted order used to promise changes it either. The balance moves only when a live order exists to move it. Once you trust the balance to mean exactly that, the committed column stops looking like a contradiction and starts looking like what it is, a list of decisions still waiting to be turned into supply. The gap between the two columns is not an error; it is your work queue.

To see the balance this protects, read reading projected available balance across the horizon. To firm a committed quantity into a job, see how to firm an MPS quantity into a job, and for the platform overview visit EDGEBIC.