Architecture & capabilities

Overview

The Material Replenisher is built on a set of integrated agentic skills that work together to handle the complete part request and requisition cycle. This article covers the core capabilities of the Digital Worker, how its components are structured, how it connects to your existing systems, and how it determines when to proceed independently versus when to involve a human.

Agentic Skills

The Material Replenisher operates through five core skills. Each handles a distinct stage of the replenishment process.

Request Interpretation

Understands technician requests by extracting the part need, unit context, description, and urgency from the message or form submission. This skill transforms unstructured natural language, such as "I need air filters for functional unit XYZ", into structured search parameters the system can act on. If the request lacks sufficient information to proceed, the system asks a targeted clarifying question rather than making the technician start over.

Part Identification & Validation

Identifies the correct inventory part and validates it against unit data and historical usage to prevent incorrect or duplicate selections. The system searches by unit type, product family, and historical work task data associated with the specific equipment. When multiple candidate parts with similar names or part numbers are found, all options are presented to the technician for selection rather than the system guessing.

Multi-Site Inventory Lookup

Checks inventory availability across multiple sites, warehouses, and locations to find usable stock and match it with the technician's location. The Digital Worker identifies all warehouse sites connected to the technician's user profile and checks inventory levels at each one, returning specific site IDs and warehouse location details. Before reporting a part as unavailable, it conducts a global search across all locations to make sure no stock has been missed.

Fulfillment Decision Logic

Determines the optimal fulfilllment path based on stock availability. When stock exists at a connected site, the system creates an internal transfer. When stock is not available anywhere, it initiates a purchase requisition (MPR). This decision is made automatically for clear cases, with the full context passed to a planner when human judgment is needed.

Context-Aware Escalation

Requests human confirmation only when information is missing, ambiguous, or requires judgment before proceeding. Rather than failing silently or making assumptions, the system pauses at the right moments, presenting options, asking for confirmation, and routing exceptions to planners with complete supporting context for fast resolution.

Component Structure

The Material Replenisher is built using a combination of tools and sub-agents coordinated by a Supervisor Agent:

• User identity resolution tools

• Part catalog search capabilities with multiple search strategies

• Warehouse connectivity checks

• Historical work task query engines

• MMR and MPR creation and management automation

The Supervisor Agent receives technician requests, orchestrates the appropriate skills in sequence, and determines when to proceed automatically versus when to surface a decision to the technician or planner.

Replenishment Workflow

The following table outlines the full replenishment workflow, from initial request intake through to fulfilllment actions.

Stage	What the System Does	Action / Output	Channel
Request Intake & Context Understanding	Captures technician request and understands job/work order context	Structures request data, triggers material lookup	FSM / IFS / MWO
Part Identification & Validation	Matches descriptions to parts, validates part numbers, detects duplicates	Identifies correct part, reduces misidentification, ensures data accuracy	IFS
Alternative Part Suggestion	Identifies substitutes or equivalents, evaluates compatibility	Suggests alternative parts, improves fulfilllment success	IFS
Inventory Check & Availability	Checks stock across locations, identifies availability constraints	Confirms availability, recommends sourcing or transfer	IFS
Requisition Creation (MMR/MPR)	Validates part and request data, prepares ERP inputs	Creates MMR or MPR, reduces manual workload	IFS
Exception Handling	Detects unclear or missing data, identifies part conflicts	Triggers human-in-the-loop review, provides resolution options	Teams

Integration Points

The Material Replenisher connects with your existing technology ecosystem across several categories.

Collaboration Platforms: Integrates directly with Microsoft Teams and Slack through widget configuration, allowing technicians to interact using natural language messages. Technicians can mention the IFS bot and issue commands directly through the channel interface, no separate system login required.

ERP Platforms: Connects directly with IFS Cloud FSM/ERP modules to access work orders, work tasks, part catalogs, and warehouse inventory, and to create maintenance material requisitions automatically.

Field Service Management: Monitors mobile work orders, work tasks, IoT fault alerts, and customer calls/portals to capture part requests from multiple sources.

Email: Integrates with Outlook and Gmail to support request intake and communication.

Enterprise Applications: Connects with enterprise platforms including IFS, Salesforce, and others for cross-system data access.

Documents: Integrates with IFS Loops and Google Drive for document-based context and knowledge base updates.

Communication Channels: Updates work orders, creates MPRs/MMRs, notifies customers, and updates knowledge bases automatically across all integrated systems.

Human-in-the-Loop Design

The Material Replenisher is designed around the principle that humans make strategic decisions while the Digital Worker handles administrative execution.

The system proceeds independently when:

• The part description is clear and unambiguous

• The part is available in connected warehouse inventory

• The request includes complete information including functional unit ID and work order

• The technician has valid credentials with proper warehouse site connections

Human input is required when:

• Requests are vague or incomplete and need clarification

• Multiple candidate parts with similar names require technician selection

• Parts are not available in inventory and a planner decision on alternatives is needed

• Conflicts or exceptions require manual resolution

When clarification is needed, the system asks targeted questions, presents multiple options when similar parts are found, conducts global searches before reporting unavailability, and routes complex cases to planners with complete supporting context already attached.

Testing and Validation

The platform includes a comprehensive evaluation environment accessible through the Loops platform, allowing users to:

• Input test queries directly and observe the Digital Worker's response in real time

• Use Plan Flow visualization to see execution steps as they happen

• Enable debug mode for granular visibility into input/output tracking, step-by-step execution, search results, and API call details

• Review historical records of all interactions with processing time metrics and visual usage graphs

This environment supports ongoing testing, optimization, and validation before deploying changes to live workflows.