What the documents look like
Regional dealer stock replenishment runs on daily rolling orders. This differs from seasonal centralized ordering in rhythm and in how records accumulate. The document set for this category covers replenishment requests, inventory turnover sheets, outbound delivery notes, and payment collection plans. These materials originate from dealer ERP, the brand ordering system, warehouse stock, and sales receipts.
Updates happen weekly or monthly, so a single replenishment request can have records sitting at different time slices across submission, review, shipment, and collection stages. In order fulfillment and after-sales question handling, citation tracing has one central job: when a dealer asks about the received quantity, the outbound time, or the collection plan for a replenishment, the answer must point back to a specific document, a specific field, and a specific version. The subject, object, and status across documents must align. When they do not, an answer mixes facts from different stages into one statement.
Constraints at the citation tracing step
The knowledge base search node can associate one or more knowledge bases that share the same vector model. Its output is a citation array, and the length can be zero. An empty array means the output path still completes; it does not mean the workflow has errored or stopped.
Citation content passes to the answering step, where each answer sentence is checked against the cited source text. The minimum relevance setting is a filter threshold that takes effect only in semantic retrieval or when result reranking is used. It does not perform permission filtering or entity isolation. The retrieval scope is set by the selected knowledge bases, and retrieval itself is not authorization.
Hybrid retrieval merges multiple result paths through RRF. RRF is a fusion process, and no corresponding on/off switch exists. Image retrieval requires image input and model capability. Reranking requires a model and runs according to its setting. These optional paths do not all execute on every request.
Assumed paper exercise sample: A dealer back-office clerk prepares one replenishment request. The source text reads: "Request number BX-2024-0317, request date 2024-03-17, replenishment of Type A filter elements 200 units, applicant has signed, status pending brand channel manager review." A separate outbound delivery note draft reads: "Delivery note CK-2024-0321, corresponding request BX-2024-0317, outbound Type A filter elements 200 units, outbound date 2024-03-21, warehouse supervisor has signed." The draft sentence to be judged is: "This replenishment request has been approved and completed outbound." Checking that sentence, the request source records only pending review, and the delivery note is an unsigned-off draft. Neither piece of evidence supports the statement that the request was approved and completed outbound.
Configuration and implementation checks
| Configuration item | Assumed starting point for this exercise | Reason and comparison method |
|---|---|---|
| Associated knowledge bases | Only the replenishment request base and the outbound delivery note base | First check whether the two bases carry the same vector model identifier; if they differ, exclude them and do not run cross-model retrieval |
| Search mode | Hybrid retrieval | Request numbers and delivery note numbers are exact identifiers and coexist with natural language questions; compare against pure semantic retrieval results |
| Citation limit | Assumed starting point 800 tokens | This is only a starting point for this exercise; compare citation count and truncation against 400 and 1200 |
| Minimum relevance | Assumed starting point 0.3 | This is only a starting point for this exercise; compare the change in recalled items against 0.2 and 0.5 |
| Question optimization | Enabled | Compare retrieval hits against the disabled state in multi-turn follow-up scenarios |
| Result reranking | Enabled | Compare ranking position against the disabled state when candidates are numerous |
Three common errors
- Treating a retrieval hit as an approval. The input is a replenishment request source text with status pending review. The comparison is between the request status field value and the answer wording. The observable result is an answer that states a status the source text does not record.
- Treating an outbound delivery note draft as a completed outbound. The input is a delivery note draft that has not taken effect. The comparison is whether the draft carries an effective or signed-off marker. The observable result is an answer describing the draft as a completed action.
- Treating minimum relevance as a permission filter. The input is replenishment records belonging to different dealers. The comparison is whether non-authorized subject records are still returned before and after the filter. The observable result is that the relevance setting does not exclude unrelated subjects.
How to verify the setup
- Input the replenishment request source text and the draft sentence "This replenishment request has been approved and completed outbound" from the assumed sample above. Compare the draft sentence against the request status field recorded in the source. If the answer restates the status as pending review and notes the delivery note is a draft, the check condition is met. If the answer confirms approval, it is not met.
- Input the outbound delivery note draft source text. Compare whether the draft records an effective or signed-off status. If the answer marks the note as an unsigned-off draft and preserves the evidence gap, the condition is met. If the answer states outbound is complete, it is not met.
- Input a clearly paper-based empty result []. Compare whether the downstream answering step continues through the empty citation path. If the downstream step does not error and indicates no content was retrieved, the condition is met. If the downstream step breaks, it is not met. All of the above are paper checks and were not actually executed.
The material identities, object, stage, date and quantity scope, and authorization boundary in this page come only from the assumed paper exercise sample. The request BX-2024-0317 sits at pending review, the delivery note CK-2024-0321 remains an unsigned-off draft, and no approval, shipment completion, or collection action is established by either document.