Inventory Planning

Our S&OP software suite includes an Inventory Planning module that is uniquely effective at driving velocity, preventing stock-outs, and trimming unnecessary safety stock. One screen identifies these priority situations and gives you access to detailed information such as inventories, sales forecasts, shipment history, trends by customer, open orders, point-of-sale data, item specs, customer specs, production schedules, deployment plans, sourcing, lead times, and DRP detail. This exceptional visibility ensures informed decisions and lower business costs.

For example, you are a company introducing two new products. Since there is no history available for these new items, sales forecasting and purchase planning is especially difficult. The sales force thinks they will sell 100 units of product A and 500 units of product B. The rest of the downstream processes, including DRP, MRP, and MPS all plan accordingly. But suppose you then realize that sales are tracking in just the reverse of the forecast. You suddenly need to increase production of product A, decrease production of B, and adjust the plan downstream accordingly. This may sound simple enough, but the many systems involved make it extremely difficult. More importantly, the detail required to identify this situation is buried so deep in these systems that it is almost impossible to find in time to adjust to meet the actual demand.

Our Inventory Planning software module identifies these situations, provides access to the details required to take advantage of them, and prioritizes to the top of a planner’s work queue. Planners can respond more quickly and effectively to this real market demand without amassing stockpiles of waste.