Business Policy Blog

Pursuing Best practices in demand planning, forecasting and inventory optimization

Direct to the Brain of the Boss – Inventory Analytics and Reporting

Direct to the Brain of the Boss – Inventory Analytics and Reporting

In this blog, the spotlight is cast on the software that creates reports for management, the silent hero that translates the beauty of furious calculations into actionable reports. Watch as the calculations, intricately guided by planners utilizing our software, seamlessly converge into Smart Operational Analytics (SOA) reports, dividing five key areas: inventory analysis, inventory performance, inventory trending, supplier performance, and demand anomalies.

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How Are We Doing? KPI’s and KPP’s

How Are We Doing? KPI’s and KPP’s

Dealing with the day-to-day of inventory management can keep you busy. But you know you have to get your head up now and then to see where you’re heading. For that, your inventory software should show you metrics – and not just one, but a full set of metrics or KPI’s – Key Performance Indicators.

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Top 3 Most Common Inventory Control Policies

Top 3 Most Common Inventory Control Policies

To make the right decision, you’ll need to know how demand forecasting supports inventory management, choice of which policy to use, and calculation of the inputs that drive these policies.The process of ordering replenishment stock is sufficiently expensive and cumbersome that you also want to minimize the number of purchase orders you must generate.

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Ten Tips that Avoid Data Problems in Software Implementation

Ten Tips that Avoid Data Problems in Software Implementation

Once a customer is ready to implement software for demand planning and/or inventory optimization, they need to connect the analytics software to their corporate data stream.This provides information on item demand and supplier lead times, among other things. We extract the rest of the data from the ERP system itself, which provides metadata such as each item’s location, unit cost, and product group.

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Recent Posts

  • Why inventory planning shouldn’t rely exclusively on simple rules of thumbWhy Inventory Planning Shouldn’t Rely Exclusively on Simple Rules of Thumb
    For too many companies, a critical piece of data fact-finding ― the measurement of demand uncertainty ― is handled by simple but inaccurate rules of thumb. For example, demand planners will often compute safety stock by a user-defined multiple of the forecast or historical average. Or they may configure their ERP to order more when on hand inventory gets to 2 x the average demand over the lead time for important items and 1.5 x for less important ones. This is a huge mistake with costly consequences. […]
  • Direct to the Brain of the Boss- Inventory AnalysisDirect to the Brain of the Boss – Inventory Analytics and Reporting
    In this blog, the spotlight is cast on the software that creates reports for management, the silent hero that translates the beauty of furious calculations into actionable reports. Watch as the calculations, intricately guided by planners utilizing our software, seamlessly converge into Smart Operational Analytics (SOA) reports, dividing five key areas: inventory analysis, inventory performance, inventory trending, supplier performance, and demand anomalies. […]
  • You need to team up with the algorithms for Inventory ManagementYou Need to Team up with the Algorithms
    This article is about the real power that comes from the collaboration between you and our software that happens at your fingertips. We often write about the software itself and what goes on “under the hood”. This time, the subject is how you should best team up with the software. […]
  • Rethinking forecast accuracy, A shift from accuracy to error metricsRethinking forecast accuracy: A shift from accuracy to error metrics
    Measuring the accuracy of forecasts is an undeniably important part of the demand planning process. This forecasting scorecard could be built based on one of two contrasting viewpoints for computing metrics. The error viewpoint asks, “how far was the forecast from the actual?” The accuracy viewpoint asks, “how close was the forecast to the actual?” Both are valid, but error metrics provide more information. […]
  • Using Key Performance Predictions to Plan Stocking Policies
    I can't imagine being an inventory planner in spare parts, distribution, or manufacturing and having to create safety stock levels, reorder points, and order suggestions without using key performance predictions of service levels, fill rates, and inventory costs. […]

    Inventory Optimization for Manufacturers, Distributors, and MRO

    • Top Differences between Inventory Planning for Finished Goods and for MRO and Spare PartsTop Differences Between Inventory Planning for Finished Goods and for MRO and Spare Parts
      In today’s competitive business landscape, companies are constantly seeking ways to improve their operational efficiency and drive increased revenue. Optimizing service parts management is an often-overlooked aspect that can have a significant financial impact. Companies can improve overall efficiency and generate significant financial returns by effectively managing spare parts inventory. This article will explore the economic implications of optimized service parts management and how investing in Inventory Optimization and Demand Planning Software can provide a competitive advantage. […]
    • Centering Act Spare Parts Timing Pricing and ReliabilityCentering Act: Spare Parts Timing, Pricing, and Reliability
      In this article, we'll walk you through the process of crafting a spare parts inventory plan that prioritizes availability metrics such as service levels and fill rates while ensuring cost efficiency. We'll focus on an approach to inventory planning called Service Level-Driven Inventory Optimization. Next, we'll discuss how to determine what parts you should include in your inventory and those that might not be necessary. Lastly, we'll explore ways to enhance your service-level-driven inventory plan consistently. […]
    • 5 Steps to Improve the Financial Impact of Spare Parts Planning5 Steps to Improve the Financial Impact of Spare Parts Planning
      In today’s competitive business landscape, companies are constantly seeking ways to improve their operational efficiency and drive increased revenue. Optimizing service parts management is an often-overlooked aspect that can have a significant financial impact. Companies can improve overall efficiency and generate significant financial returns by effectively managing spare parts inventory. This article will explore the economic implications of optimized service parts management and how investing in Inventory Optimization and Demand Planning Software can provide a competitive advantage. […]
    • Bottom Line strategies for Spare Parts Planning SoftwareBottom Line Strategies for Spare Parts Planning
      Managing spare parts presents numerous challenges, such as unexpected breakdowns, changing schedules, and inconsistent demand patterns. Traditional forecasting methods and manual approaches are ineffective in dealing with these complexities. To overcome these challenges, this blog outlines key strategies that prioritize service levels, utilize probabilistic methods to calculate reorder points, regularly adjust stocking policies, and implement a dedicated planning process to avoid excessive inventory. Explore these strategies to optimize spare parts inventory and improve operational efficiency. […]

    Problem

    What is my inventory position today, on any item?  Where are we stocking out and how often? What are my delivery times?  Why did we ship late?  Do we have too much inventory in one location, not enough in another?  What are my real supplier lead times?   These are obvious, daily questions, and the answers can reveal underlying root causes that when resolved will improve supply chain performance.  But these answers are elusive, often because data is locked up in your ERP and only accessible via limited reporting views or spreadsheets.  Creating these reports manually using Excel requires data imports, reformatting, and distribution to key stakeholders, wasting countless hours of valuable planning time. This means that getting updated information, when you need it, is not always possible. Not having access to these answers means that problems reveal themselves only after it is too late, and opportunities for improving the inventory planning process are overlooked, further contributing to poor performance.

    Solution

    Smart Operational Analytics (SOA™) is a native web reporting solution available on Smart’s Inventory Planning and Optimization Platform, Smart IP&O.  It provides a fast, easily understood, current perspective on the state of your inventory, its performance against critical metrics, actual supplier lead times, opportunities to rebalance stocks across facilities, and helps you uncover root causes of operational inefficiencies.  SOA automatically refreshes as often as you’d like providing all stakeholders immediate, up-to-date reporting on your operations and performance.  You’ll have constant visibility of inventory levels, orders, shipments, and supplier performance to ensure you’ll always be in tune with the state of your operations and resolve issues before they become problems. Enhance visibility. Improve responsiveness. Increase your bottom line.

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      Smart Operational Analytics

      Inventory Analytics

      Quantify inventory value
      Inventory segmentation
      Inventory classification
      Trend metrics over time

      Operational Performance

      Measure service level performance
      Measure fill rate performance
      Calculate turns, holding & ordering costs
      Trend metrics over time

      Supplier Insights

      Measure supplier performance
      Compare supplier lead times
      Rank suppliers across available metrics
      Trend metrics over time

      Who is Operational Analytics for?

      Smart Operational Analytics is for executives, planners, and operations professionals who seek to:

      • Measure inventory costs and performance in real time.
      • Assess and compare Supplier performance.
      • Identify root causes of stockouts, excess inventory, and late deliveries.
      • share KPI’s such as service levels, turns, costs, and more across the organization.
      What questions can Operational Analytics answer?
      • What does my inventory look like? By value, count, classification?
      • Is my inventory trending up, down, or the same?
      • How much of my inventory is overstocked, understocked, or acceptable?
      • Can inventory be transferred from overstocked locations to under stocked locations?
      • Can existing supplier orders be cancelled or deferred?
      • What are my current turns, service levels, and fill rates and how do they trend over time?
      • How many out of stock events occurred this week, this month, this quarter?
      • How are my suppliers performing, how do they compare?
      • What is my supplier lead time and how has it changed over time?
      Inventory and supplier reporting for your enterprise

      Smart Operational Analytics empowers you to:

      • Benchmark service performance and inventory costs.
      • Benchmark supplier performance.
      • Assess and Classify Inventory by class, stage, and more.
      • Share metrics with the organization.

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