Yes, he can enter as many as he wants. It doesn't mean any beyond 5 will get built in the first 6-9 months. The dealer sets the priority on which orders get picked up first, except in the event of constraints like the FAY carbon fiber dash.

 

And we still don't know if the chicken really crossed the road ........................

 

Thanks people.

Not being a GM employee since I spent two summers in the sixties building trucks in Pontiac, I have no work related experience in the ordering process. My description is based on ordering more cars than I care to remember, so it looks like a semantic dispute as I do not actually speak the language.

But its all good, I think it helps to be awa4re of both processes, in part being on the outside we retail order customers have a hard time distinguishing the difference. And GM'er makes one of my points, that ordering from a dealer point of view, is more complex than a paragraph or two can describe.

Laborsmith

 

I hope you understand my intention was not to call you out, it's just there is so much misinformation on the forum, and many members are getting lost in the process because of not having the correct terminology. I just want to make sure everyone is on the same page.

 

Cool enough.

Now the question is how the consensus and the ordering process intertwines. I see the ordering process as a weekly event and it looks like consensus/allocation may be a once or twice a month event.

If so, then the question needing an answer seems to me to be how these two work together?

And I am with you about the amount of misinformation often posted which is why I have tried to add what I have learned through both my own trial and error and from answers to questions such as the above question to the discussion. As I was told while waiting for my first pre-order (a 1974 Cherokee ordered before Labor Day 1973), "You are going to school!!"


Laborsmith

 

Ok, I'll give this one a shot at a 30,000 foot view. What I'm describing is how the process works in general for all Chevrolet vehicles, and it does vary with product launches like we are in right now for Corvette.

1. - Consensus - happens twice a month, and the first "Cycle" begins on the first Thursday of the first full week of the month and runs through the following Monday. The second "Cycle" runs two weeks later on the third Thursday through Monday.

This is where the dealers are offered the opportunity to take allocations of vehicles from GM. The allocations offered are based on our forecasted production volume, and the dealers available days supply.

After consensus is complete, the dealers are given a report of all of the allocations they accepted and which weeks they will have to build actual orders in the system to be picked up and scheduled for production. The vehicles are ordered over the next two weeks after the consensus cycle. There is some confusion here, because as another consensus cycle comes up, the dealers are still building orders from the previous cycle.

2. - DOSP cycle, or Dealer Order Submission Process. This is the process in the two weeks following consensus where the dealer enters orders into the system to cover the allocations they were given on consensus, and they are picked up by the system to be scheduled for production. This process runs from Thursday to Saturday, with another window opening up on the following Tuesday for changes to orders. Dealers can enter orders beforehand, and they will sit in their order bank (also called preliminary status, or event code 1100) until the week comes up where the dealer has allocation for them to be accepted into the GM system.

Each week during the DOSP GM will also publish a list of option constraints for that week, and allocate a certain number of the constrained options to each dealer as well. Dealers must ensure that their orders fit within these constraints, or risk losing the allocation of the vehicle. For example, if a dealer has 4 Corvettes to order that particular week, and FAY is on a 50% constraint, the dealer will be told he can order 2 cars with FAY, and 2 cars without it.

During the DOSP is also when the dealer prioritizes his orders to tell the system which ones to pick up. He can prioritize them numerically 1 through 99, which tells the system he wants the order with priority 1 picked up first. This is how the system knows if a dealer has 4 allocations to order, and 25 orders in the order bank, which four to pick up.

Hope this helps, and I didn't confuse everyone even more!

Here is a real simple illustration of the process. Consensus is like a dinner reservation. The restaurant has a limited number of tables, and time slots, they plan to fill on a given day. Consensus is you telling the restaurant I'm coming to dinner, and here is how many places at the table I need. The restaurant agrees that they have that many slots open at the time you want and you reach a consensus of when you are coming and how many people you are coming with. The DOSP cycle is when you get to the restaurant with the 10 people you said were coming, now each of you has to order an actual plate of food. You order the food, and it is scheduled in the kitchen to be cooked (produced)

 

GMer, you are the man.

Hopefully folks will pick up that the constraint thing can explain how sometimes an order that came in later than another can be produced first. That is, when they start producing some.

 

Definitely helps, especially how the loss of an allocation can occur. It did seem to me to be late in the game (under my scenario) but until now I did not know.

I wonder how Detroit area dealers deal with that Saturday deadline as they are only open four Saturdays a year.

Thanks for the clarifying.

Laborsmith

 

To use GM'er's analogy at the restaurant, a constraint would be like someone ordering a chicken sandwich to-go, but if the restaurant is out of chicken, then other orders will still be made, and the person ordering the chicken would either have to wait, cancel his order, or order something else.