Belmont, Mass., May 14  – Smart Software, Inc., provider of industry-leading demand forecasting, planning, and inventory optimization solutions, today announced that Epicor Software will present Epicor Smart IP&O, a joint solution for inventory planning, forecasting, and optimization at Epicor’s annual customer conference in Nashville, TN from May 21 – 24 .  Smart Software will also be on hand to profile the solution in booth # 5 in the Solutions Pavilion.

Smart Software and Epicor’s collaboration  brings the cloud-based Smart IP&O (Inventory Planning and Optimization) into the latest version of the Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Smart Software’s Chief Technology Officer, Sree Menon states “it’s no longer enough to simply manage inventory. By seamlessly integrating strategic planning with operational execution, Smart IP&O enables Epicor ERP users to continuously predict, respond and plan inventory helping lower costs and improve service.”

The Epicor Sales Engineering team will demonstrate Epicor Smart IP&O in two sessions:

“Introducing Epicor Smart Demand Planning & Inventory Optimization”
Thursday, May 24 at 8:00 AM
Tennessee Ballrom B

“Moderniza las Operaciones de tu Cadena de Suministro con la Plataforma Epicor Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization”
Thursday, May 24  at 10:20 AM
Ryman Studio H/I

Epicor Insights 2018 will bring together more than 3,000 users of Epicor’s industry-specific ERP solutions for the manufacturing, distribution, and service industries. Customers who attend will have dedicated education tracks focused on their specific products and solutions, plus more opportunities to network across products and industries. To learn more, visit https://www.epicor.com/customers/insights/default.aspx

About Smart Software, Inc.
Founded in 1981, Smart Software, Inc. is a leader in providing businesses with enterprise-wide demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization solutions.  Smart Software’s demand forecasting and inventory optimization solutions have helped thousands of users worldwide, including customers at mid-market enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, such as Mitsubishi, Siemens, Disney, FedEx, MARS, and The Home Depot.  Smart Inventory Planning & Optimization gives demand planners the tools to handle sales seasonality, promotions, new and aging products, multi-dimensional hierarchies, and intermittently demanded service parts and capital goods items.  It also provides inventory managers with accurate estimates of the optimal inventory and safety stock required to meet future orders and achieve desired service levels.  Smart Software is headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts and can be found on the World Wide Web at www.smartcorp.com.

For more information, please contact Smart Software, Inc., Four Hill Road, Belmont, MA 02478.
Phone: 1-800-SMART-99 (800-762-7899); FAX: 1-617-489-2748; E-mail: info@smartcorp.com

Dr. Tom Willemain to lead ISF session on Time Series Dissaggregation

Belmont, Mass., May 14, 2018 – Smart Software, Inc., provider of industry-leading demand forecasting, planning, and inventory optimization solutions, today announced that Tom Willemain, vice president for research, will present at the International Symposium of Forecasting from June 17 – 20 in Boulder, CO.

Dr. Willemain, will present a tutorial on Time Series Dissaggregation and how the approaches he’ll outline can improve the quality of demand forecasts.  Imagine that you must provide daily forecast results but can only obtain historical demand at monthly or weekly levels.   Often times, granular demand data is not available.  How do you proceed?  Converting aggregate quarterly, monthly, or weekly data to daily data is example of the time series dissaggregation problem. Dr. Willemain will discuss current solutions to this problem and press an improved solution.

As the premier, international forecasting conference, the ISF provides the opportunity to interact with the world’s leading forecasting researchers and practitioners. The attendance is large enough so that the best in the field are attracted, yet small enough that you are able to meet and discuss one-on-one. The ISF offers a variety of networking opportunities, through keynote speaker presentations, academic sessions, workshops, meals, and social programs. In addition, representatives of leading publishing, software, and other related companies are on hand to discuss their most recent offerings.

About Dr. Thomas Willemain
Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain served as an Expert Statistical Consultant to the National Security Agency (NSA) at Ft. Meade, MD and as a member of the Adjunct Research Staff at an affiliated think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses Center for Computing Sciences (IDA/CCS). He is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, having previously held faculty positions at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also co-founder and Senior Vice President/Research at Smart Software, Inc. He is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, the Military Operations Research Society, the American Statistical Association, and several other professional organizations. Willemain received the BSE degree (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Princeton University and the MS and PhD degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His other books include: Statistical Methods for Planners, Emergency Medical Systems Analysis (with R. C. Larson), and 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals on topics in statistics, operations research, health care and other topics. For more information, email: TomW@SmartCorp.com or visit www.TomWillemain.com.

About Smart Software, Inc.
Founded in 1981, Smart Software, Inc. is a leader in providing businesses with enterprise-wide demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization solutions.  Smart Software’s demand forecasting and inventory optimization solutions have helped thousands of users worldwide, including customers at mid-market enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, such as Mitsubishi, Siemens, Disney, FedEx, MARS, and The Home Depot.  Smart Inventory Planning & Optimization gives demand planners the tools to handle sales seasonality, promotions, new and aging products, multi-dimensional hierarchies, and intermittently demanded service parts and capital goods items.  It also provides inventory managers with accurate estimates of the optimal inventory and safety stock required to meet future orders and achieve desired service levels.  Smart Software is headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts and can be found at www.smartcorp.com

SmartForecasts is a registered trademark of Smart Software, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact Smart Software, Inc., Four Hill Road, Belmont, MA 02478.
Phone: 1-800-SMART-99 (800-762-7899); FAX: 1-617-489-2748; E-mail: info@smartcorp.com

Belmont, MA, February 1, 2018 – “Working on the Dark Side of the Moon” provides the first, ground-level look inside the super-secret National Security Agency (NSA) and a shadowy think tank affiliated with it. The book was launched originally last year and is now available to Smart Software customers. The author, known to many Smart Software customers as demand forecast expert and trainer is also a statistics professor who volunteered for a year-long sabbatical tour of duty in the NSA.  He ended up spending several years with the agency moving between business, academic, and the secret worlds. This book records his impressions of people and places never before described in such intimate detail.

A deeply personal account of the years spent within the most secretive organization in the world, Working on the Dark Side of the Moon explores the range of emotions an outsider experiences while crossing over to the “inside.” It also shows the positive side of an Agency whose secrecy hides dedicated men and women devoted to protecting the country while honoring the Constitution. 

Willemain writes, “The very secrecy that enables NSA to be effective also cripples its ability to explain its positive contributions. Into this void are projected grossly distorted views of what NSA does and what NSA
people are like. This book puts a human face on the people who work in this secret world: their character, motivations, frustrations, sense of humor. Readers can develop a more balanced and nuanced view of NSA and its people.”

About the Author
Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain served as an Expert Statistical Consultant to the National Security Agency (NSA) at Ft. Meade, MD and as a member of the Adjunct Research Staff at an affiliated think-tank, the Institute for Defense Analyses Center for Computing Sciences (IDA/CCS). He is Professor Emeritus of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, having previously held faculty positions at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is also co-founder and Senior Vice President/Research at Smart Software, Inc. He is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, the Military Operations Research Society, the American Statistical Association, and several other professional organizations. Willemain received the BSE degree (summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Princeton University and the MS and PhD degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His other books include: Statistical Methods for Planners, Emergency Medical Systems Analysis (with R. C. Larson), and 80 articles in peer-reviewed journals on topics in statistics, operations research, health care and other topics. For more information, email: TomW@SmartCorp.com or visit TomWillemain.com.

For more information please email tomw@smartcor.com or visit www.tom.willemain.com 

For more information, please contact Smart Software, Inc., Four Hill Road, Belmont, MA 02478.
Phone: 1-800-SMART-99 (800-762-7899); FAX: 1-617-489-2748

For Immediate Release

Collaboration Leverages Cloud Analytics and Inventory Modeling to Improve the Bottom Line

Belmont, Massachusetts. December 18, 2017 – Smart Software, a global provider of next generation 100% web-based demand planning, forecasting and inventory optimization solutions, announces today their enhanced partnership with Epicor Software Corporation.  This collaboration for the first time brings the cloud-based Smart IP&O (Inventory Planning and Optimization) into the latest version of the Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. By seamlessly integrating strategic planning with operational execution, business users can continuously predict, respond and plan more effectively in today’s uncertain business environment.

Scott Hays, Senior Vice President, Product Marketing, Epicor says “Smart Software helps Epicor ERP customers by delivering insightful business analytics for inventory modeling and forecasting that drive ordering and replenishment in our latest version of Epicor ERP. Having too much or not enough inventory are both costly problems. With the addition of Smart IP&O, senior executives gain the means to shape inventory strategy to align with the business objectives, while empowering their planning teams.”

The joint offering makes all transactional data in Epicor ERP, such as shipments, sales orders, receipts, inventory on hand, and more, available in Smart IP&O’s data model. Smart IP&O brings this data to life leveraging field-proven analytics. This enables executives and their planning team to identify operational inefficiencies, accurately forecast demand, and model the financial and customer impact of current and proposed inventory policies.

Greg Hartunian, CEO of Smart Software stated “Businesses that leverage cloud analytics are able to better understand their operations, lower costs, improve customer service, and outperform the competition. We look forward to working closely with Epicor to help our joint customers achieve these key benefits.”

Find out more about how Smart Software can help your company in this APICS article “Automated Statistical Analysis Drives Inventory Management”

About Smart Software: Since its founding in 1981, Smart Software has been a leading global provider of demand planning, forecasting, and inventory optimization solutions.  We help our customers utilize their corporate data including sales history, demand signals, supplier transactions, and more to better forecast sales, optimize inventory stocking requirements, and identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency.  Today hundreds of leading organizations around the globe including FedEx, The Home Depot, Metro-North Railroad, Disneyland Resorts, and MARS, as well as many mid- and small market enterprises use our solutions to improve forecast accuracy and optimize inventory levels.

Epicor and Epicor ERP are trademarks or registered trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries.

Melbourne, Australia, December 5, 2017 – SparePartsKnowHow.com and Smart Software announced a new content sharing alliance as part of Smart Software’s sponsorship of SparePartsKnowHow.com. The alliance brings together SparePartsKnowHow.com, the leading provider of spare parts related online training, and Smart Software, a global leader in demand planning and forecasting solutions.

This alliance will enable SparePartsKnowHow.com to expand its already extensive knowledge base to include more demand planning and forecasting content. In turn, Smart Software will make use of SparePartsKnowHow.com content to provide a greater breadth of know-how to its clients.

Referring to this alliance, Mr. Greg Hartunian, President & CEO of Smart Software said, ‘Phillip Slater is a global thought-leader in spare parts inventory management and has built SparePartsKnowHow.com into the leading online resource center for spare parts management practitioners. We are very excited to be associated with the site.’

‘In particular we were attracted by the global reach that the site provides and we want to be part of that reach into the future. Our mission is to provide analytical solutions that help our customers leverage their corporate data to plan for demand, optimize stock holding, and to generate significant economic return. By joining in this alliance, we expect to gain even further exposure to the global community of spare parts management professionals. In turn, this means that more companies will be able to achieve their spare parts management goals.’

Phillip Slater, Founder of SparePartsKnowHow.com said, ‘Our vision is to become the central hub for anyone involved in spare parts management, anywhere in the world.  In addition to our own online resource center and training, with this alliance, our clients and subscribers will be introduced to additional content and a service provider that they can trust.’

Mr. Slater added, ‘We have been very selective in forming alliances and one of the attractions of Smart Software is that they have a clear understanding of one of the main problems with spare parts management: forecasting of parts that exhibit intermittent demand. Their APICS award-winning method for intermittent demand forecasting is a clear differentiator of Smart Software’s expertise and makes them a welcome addition to SparePartsKnowHow.com.’

‘I suggest that anyone interested in understanding Smart Software’s approach register for their upcoming webinar.’

For more information please visit SmartCorp.com and SparePartsKnowHow.com.

About Smart Software Inc.

Since its founding in 1981, Smart Software has been a leading provider of demand planning, forecasting, and inventory optimization solutions.  Smart Software helps customers utilize their corporate data including sales history, demand signals, supplier transactions, and more to better forecast sales, optimize inventory stocking requirements, and identify opportunities to improve operational efficiency.  Today hundreds of leading organizations around the globe including FedEx, The Home Depot, Metro-North Railroad, Disneyland Resorts, and MARS, as well as many mid- and small market enterprises use Smart Software solutions to improve forecast accuracy and optimize inventory levels.

About SparePartsKnowHow.com

SparePartsKnowHow.com was launched in 2011 to provide online training specifically for spare parts inventory management. That is what makes this service unique. The site content has been developed in response to specific ‘real world’ spare parts management issues, rather than based on generic theory. The videos and training modules are developed from programs that have helped companies achieve some astonishing inventory optimization results – including inventory optimization exceeding 50%. The website is designed to give members the online training and support needed to become high achievers in spare parts inventory management.

Contact Information:

Phillip Slater
Founder, SparePartsKnowHow.com
+61 3 9331 3181
pslater@InitiateAction.com

SmartForecasts is a registered trademark of Smart Software, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact Smart Software, Inc., Four Hill Road, Belmont, MA 02478.
Phone: 1-800-SMART-99 (800-762-7899); FAX: 1-617-489-2748

SmartForecasts to accurately forecast future parts usage at 14 inventory stocking locations

Belmont, Mass., August 6, 2014 – Smart Software, Inc., leading provider of service level-driven demand planning, today announced that, in a public bidding process, Minnesota’s Metro Transit purchased its flagship product, SmartForecasts^®. Smart’s solution has a unique technology for accurately forecasting intermittent demand, solving a critical parts planning challenge for transit systems. In addition to software, Smart Software will provide Metro Transit with consulting, training, and ongoing support services.

The Materials Management Department at Metro Transit will use the software to improve the planning and purchasing of service parts for its bus and rail operations. Many of the company’s parts exhibit hard-to-forecast intermittent demand. The erratic nature of its parts consumption requires an inventory planning system that is easy to use, accurately forecasts future parts usage, and provides reliable inputs into its replenishment process.

Metro Transit is the public transportation system for the Greater Minneapolis/St. Paul, metropolitan area in Minnesota. In 2013, Metro Transit provided 81.4 million bus, commuter rail, and light rail rides on over 128 routes. The company stocks 24,000 parts valued at approximately $42 million which support over 1,000 vehicles. Repair operations are supported by a central warehouse and a network of 13 stocking locations spread throughout the region.

Using service-level driven demand planning techniques enabled by SmartForecasts, Metro Transit’s material planners will know the proper amount of inventory to carry for all parts in all warehouses to meet its challenging service levels.This will be especially important for intermittently demanded items which cannot be forecasted using traditional planning methods. Expected benefits include more effective and less costly resource allocation and increased parts availability to sustain ongoing operations.  SmartForecasts will interface with Metro Transit’s Fleetworks ERP system, which handles the parts purchasing function.

“Metro Transit’s ridership has increased by over 5 million rides in the last 4 years. Ensuring a high level of customer service has never been more important,”said Greg Hartunian, president of Smart Software. “Using SmartForecasts to help accurately forecast parts inventory requirements and better understand service vs. financial tradeoffs will help Metro Transit continue to maximize service at a minimum cost.”

Metro Transit joins a number of leading transportation systems in its decision to implement SmartForecasts, including Metro North Railroad, Montreal Transit, and New Jersey Transit.

About Smart Software, Inc.
Founded in 1981, Smart Software, Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise-wide demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization solutions.  Smart Software’s flagship product, SmartForecasts, has thousands of users worldwide, including customers at mid-market enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, such as Abbott Laboratories, Metro-North Railroad, Siemens, Disney, Nestle, Nikon, GE and The Coca-Cola Company.  Smart Software is headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts and can be found online at www.smartsoftware.wpengine.com .

SmartForecasts is a registered trademark of Smart Software, Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For more information, please contact Smart Software, Inc., Four Hill Road, Belmont, MA 02478.
Phone: 1-800-SMART-99 (800-762-7899); FAX: 1-617-489-2748; E-mail: info@smartsoftware.wpengine.com