The Capacity tab features configurable event settings relating to bidder capacity. Each of the capacity settings enables you to inquire about different aspects of the bidder's capacity.
The Capacity tab and its event settings are only available for RFQ events.
Bidders submit their capacity limits, bidder-defined capacity limits, and lot share capacity on the Capacity Limits tab of the event.
Capacity limits
Use the Capacity limits feature to ask bidders questions about their capacity. This enables the bidder to provide their minimum and maximum capacity on particular columns.
Click Add a capacity question to configure a question about bidder capacity. Select the column that you want the bidder to provide their capacity limits for and the type of limit: Minimum, Maximum, or Minimum and Maximum.
Bidder-defined capacity limits
Enable bidders to define custom capacity limits across groups of lots. Bidders can create bundles of lots and specify the minimum and maximum number of lots they want to win.
You can configure this setting so that bidders can define the minimum capacity, maximum capacity, or both the minimum and maximum capacity.
Lot share capacity
Enable bidders to define their capacity limits for each lot.
To enable this feature, Split Configuration must also be enabled, and the Volume role must be assigned to a column. For additional information, see General tab and Assigning a column role.
Example: How different capacity limit settings can complement each other
Each capacity limit setting can be used on its own or in conjunction with either or both of the other capacity limit settings. The table in Figure 3 illustrates how different limits can be captured and used together to establish more accurate bidder capacity for a transport event.
In this event, there are five lanes for the bidder to bid on. In this type of event, a bidder may likely bid their full capacity for each lane. If they are competitive, this could result in the bidder being awarded more volume than they can actually offer. To mitigate this risk, we can use the Capacity limits setting.
We create a column based on the origin country, France, and ask the bidder to provide their overall capacity for this origin country. As shown in the table, the bidder has indicated in the Lot Share Limit MAX column, that they can accommodate the maximum capacity for each lane, which adds up to 900 movements. However, their total overall capacity for the origin country, France, as indicated in the Capacity Limit column, is actually 500 movements. In this case, Sourcing Optimizer ensures that the most competitive 500 movements are awarded based on the scenario rules.
Looking at the Bidder Defined Capacity Limit and the Lot Share Limit MIN columns, we can see that the bidder has indicated that the destination countries, Germany and the UK, are to be given preference. In this case, Sourcing Optimizer aims to award at least 50 movements for both destination countries, and then allocate the remaining 400 movements to the same lanes or the remainder of the lanes, subject to their competitiveness.