March 30, 2011 - ASN/Shipping Manifest

The ASC ship notice/manifest (commonly known as the advance shipping
notice or ASN) is primarily an electronic version of the packing slip. However, instead of being received with the shipment, the ASN is transmitted at the time the shipment is released by the supplier to the Transportation Company. When the ASN and purchase order acknowledgement are used together, there is no need to provide supersession, obsolescence, or quantity rounding exception information via paper documents.

In general, only the following types of information will be included on the ASN:

- product information -- shipped, backordered, or cancelled quantities, and the
disposition of remainders;

- purchase order reference for each specified part;

- shipment physical characteristics -- weight, number of boxes; and,

- shipment information -- date shipped, expected arrival date, shipping mode, and
transportation company used.

Ideally, the distributor should integrate the electronic receipt of the ASN into his existing computerized receiving function. For instance, the following combination of manual and automated procedures might be used:

1. The supplier generates and transmits the ASN, assigning a shipment number.
2. The distributor receives the electronic transmission, verifies that the referenced
purchase orders are valid, and stores it according to the shipment number.
a. If critical parts ordered are not contained in the shipment, the distributor might
immediately begin finding alternative sources.
b. If the shipment is large or is expected to arrive on the same day as other
shipments, thereby causing an overload of receiving operations, the distributor might schedule additional receiving dock personnel or prioritize processing of shipments based on need for the parts in transit.