What Is a Location?
A Location in PLAIO represents a physical site in your supply chain, such as a warehouse, production facility, vendor site, or contract manufacturer. Locations are one of the first things you set up because nearly everything else in the system references them: inventory is held at a location, supply orders are delivered to a location, production happens at a location, and supply lanes connect one location to another.
This article covers what each field means, how to think about your location structure, and best practices for keeping your data clean.
Location Fields
Location Name
A unique, human-readable identifier for the location. This is the name that appears in dropdowns and worksheets throughout PLAIO.
Location Type
Each location must be assigned one of four types. These are used as reference for the user, and filtering capabilities.
Type | When to Use |
Warehouse | Storage and distribution sites where finished goods or materials are held. This is the most common type for internal inventory locations. |
Production | Internal manufacturing facilities where items are produced. Use this for any site with a shop floor that you schedule in PLAIO. |
Vendor | External supplier locations. These appear as the source in supplier constraints to define where purchased materials ship from. |
CMO | Contract Manufacturing Organizations. Similar to Vendor but specifically for outsourced production, helping you distinguish external manufacturing from raw material sourcing. |
Firm Order Allocation Timing
This setting controls when firm orders consume inventory during supply simulation. There are two options:
At Order Date - inventory is consumed at the order date. Use this if your inventory data already reflects consumption positioned at the order date.
At Simulation Start (default) - inventory is consumed at the expected delivery date during simulation.
Choose the option that matches how your inventory data represents consumption.
Best Practices
Deciding How Granular to Be
The right level of granularity depends on whether the system needs to distinguish between two sites for planning purposes. Ask yourself:
Do these sites hold separate inventory? If yes, they should be separate locations. PLAIO tracks inventory per location, so two warehouses with independent stock need to be modeled individually.
Do items move between these sites with a lead time? If products transfer between two facilities and that transit time matters for planning, model them as separate locations connected by a supply lane.
Does production happen at one site and storage at another? A production facility and its adjacent warehouse should usually be separate locations if they serve different functions in your supply chain, even if they're in the same building.
On the other hand, avoid creating locations that the system doesn't need to distinguish. If two storage areas within the same warehouse share inventory and don't have independent constraints, a single location is cleaner.
Rule of thumb: If two sites share the same inventory pool and the same supply constraints, they can be one location. If they don't, they should be separate.
Naming Conventions
Location names appear in dropdowns and filters across every planning module. Consistent naming makes the system much easier to navigate, especially as your location count grows.
Be descriptive but concise. Include enough context to identify the site without being verbose. For example, "Chicago DC" or "Berlin Production" rather than just "Site 1" or "Warehouse".
Use a consistent format. Pick a pattern and stick with it. Common formats include {City} {Type} (e.g., "Dallas Warehouse"), {Country Code}-{Site} (e.g., "USDallas-WH"), or your organization's existing site codes.
Avoid special characters and abbreviations that aren't widely understood. The name should make sense to anyone on the planning team, not just the person who created it.
Include the location type in the name if it helps clarity. When you have a production site and warehouse in the same city, names like "Munich Production" and "Munich Warehouse" prevent confusion.
Keeping Location Data Clean
Set up locations before importing other data. Inventory, supply orders, supplier constraints, and shop floors all reference locations. Creating locations first prevents import errors.
Avoid duplicates. PLAIO enforces unique names, but watch out for near-duplicates like "Chicago WH" and "Chicago Warehouse" that represent the same site. Consolidate before importing.
Review periodically. As your supply chain evolves, locations may be decommissioned or consolidated. Remove or archive unused locations to keep dropdowns and filters manageable.
Where Locations Appear in PLAIO
Once configured, locations are referenced throughout the system:
Inventory - each inventory record is associated with a location. This is where your stock lives.
Supplier Constraints - supply lanes and production constraints are both configured here. Lanes are defined between a source and destination location, with lead times and order policies. For production sites, the source and destination are typically the same location.
Supply Orders - every supply order has a destination location indicating where inventory will arrive.
Inventory Policies - safety stock, planning strategies, and backorder policies are set per item-location combination.
Production (Shop Floors) - each shop floor is linked to a location. Production orders must match the shop floor's location.
Supply Planning - the planning grid is organized by item and location. The same SKU can have different inventory, safety stock, and order suggestions at different locations.
Because of these dependencies, locations are best thought of as foundational infrastructure. Take the time to define them well upfront and your planning data will be consistent from day one.
Importing Locations
Locations can be added individually through the Locations worksheet or imported in bulk via Excell upload. The upload requires two fields:
name - the unique location name.
location_type - one of: Vendor, CMO, Production, Warehouse.
Optional fields include firm_order_allocation_timing and any custom attributes. If you re-import a Excel with existing location names, PLAIO will update the existing records rather than creating duplicates.
Tip: Import your locations as the very first step when setting up PLAIO. Other data imports (inventory, supply orders, supplier constraints) will fail if they reference locations that don't exist yet.