For discrete manufacturers, many factors contribute to an efficient operation and healthy bottom line. One important factor that can get overlooked is forecasting — determining the right amounts of raw materials and components needed to meet production requirements. A manual, informal process can result in costly excess inventory or order fulfillment and production efficiency problems.
At many companies, forecasting is done using inefficient and error-prone spreadsheets. To compensate, many companies maintain an inventory “fudge factor,” keeping too much inventory on hand. Other times, they maintain too little and consequently lose sales, incur expediting costs, or ship late.
Forward-thinking discrete manufacturers overcome these operational challenges by automating their forecasting processes with a solution integrated with their ERP system to help them quickly calculate more accurate forecasts and optimal safety stock levels.
Infor SyteLine Forecasting automates the calculation of forecasts and other inventory drivers such as safety stock, and alerts you when actual demand varies from the plan. Forecasting is easy to use and implement, and automates the following processes:
- Collect data — Collect historical sales of products or usage of components in both units and dollars.
- Calculate forecasts — Use historical demand and various algorithms with what-if analysis. Forecasts also can be generated collaboratively with multiple data points like customer input, salesperson input, manager input, etc.. The solution also supports combined forecasting methods, such as when part of demand is forecast by statistics and part by imported customer data.
- Analyze data — Analyze forecasts, sales, bookings, or usage of materials by unit and dollar volume and compare forecasts to historical trends and to actual demand. Information is presented graphically by groupings, including product, family, commodity, planner, and user defined.
- Adapt the forecast — Adjust the forecast for specific market factors such as promotions, competitive situations, and new opportunities. These adjustments can be made at the various group levels or at the item level.
- Calculate optimum inventory levels — Calculate optimum safety stock, order size, and re-order points, factoring in average usage, variability, lead time, and desired service level.
- Perform top-down forecasting — For configure-to-order products, use planning bills to calculate or specify a single forecast for a group of items and then consume that forecast when members of the group are sold. For common components but with unlimited end-item possibilities, the solution enables you to forecast the components, rather than the end items, and consume the forecast when the components are used.
Statistically calculate forecasts based on historical demand using various algorithms with what - if analysis.
