You can’t properly manage your inventory levels, let alone optimize them, if you don’t have a handle on exactly how demand forecasts and stocking parameters (such as Min/Max, safety stocks, and reorder points, and order quantities) are determined.

Many organizations cannot specify how policy inputs are calculated or identify situations calling for management overrides to the policy.   For example, many people can say they rely on a particular planning method such as Min/Max, reorder point, or forecast with safety stock, but they can’t say exactly how these planning inputs are calculated.  More fundamentally, they may not understand what would happen to their KPI’s if they were to change Min,Max, or Safety Stock. They may know that the forecast relies on “averages” or “history” or “sales input”, but specific details about how the final forecast is arrived at are unclear.

Often enough, a company’s inventory planning and forecasting logic was developed by a former employee or vanished consultant and entombed in a spreadsheet.  It otherwise may rely on outdated ERP functionality or ERP customization by an IT organization that incorrectly assumed that ERP software can and should do everything. (Read this great and, as they say, “funny because it’s true,” blog by Shaun Snapp about ERP Centric Strategies.)  The policy may not have been properly documented, and no one currently on the job can improve it or use it to best advantage.

This unhappy situation leads to another, in which buyers and inventory planners flat out ignore the output from the ERP system, forcing reliance on Microsoft Excel to determine order schedules.  Ad hoc methods are developed that impede cohesive responses to operational issues and aren’t visible to the rest of the organization (unless you want your CFO to learn the complex and finicky spreadsheet).  These methods often rely on rules of thumb, averaging techniques, or textbook statistics without a full understanding of their shortcomings or applicability.  And even when documented, most companies often discover that actual ordering strays from the documented policy.  One company we consulted for had on hand inventory levels that were routinely 2 x’s the Max quantity!  In other words, there isn’t really a policy at all.

In summary, many current inventory and demand forecast “systems” were developed out of distrust for the previous system’s suggestions but don’t actually improve KPI’s.  They also force the organization to rely on a few employees to manage demand forecasting, daily ordering, and inventory replenishment.

And when there is a problem, it is impossible for the executive team to unwind how you got there, because there are too many moving parts.  For example, was the excess stock the fault of an inaccurate demand forecast that relied on an averaging method that didn’t account for a declining demand?  Or was it due to an outdated lead time setting that was higher than it should’ve been?  Or was it due to a forecast override a planner made to account for an order that just never happened?  And who gave the feedback to make that override?  A customer? Salesperson?

Do you have any of these problems?  If so, you are wasting hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars each year in unnecessary shortage costs, holding costs, and ordering costs.  What would you be able to do with that extra cash?  Imagine the impact that this would have on your business.

This blog details the top 10 questions that you can ask in order to uncover what’s really happening at your company.  We detail the typical answers provided when a forecasting/inventory planning policy doesn’t really exist, explain how to interpret these answers, and offer some clear advice on what to do about it.

Most demand forecasts are partial or incomplete: They provide only one single number: the most likely value of future demand. This is called a point forecast. Usually, the point forecast estimates the average value of future demand.  Interval forecasts provide an estimate of the possible future range of demand (i.e. demand has a 90% chance of being between 50 – 100 units).  Probabilistic forecasts take it a step further and provide additional information.  Knowing more is always better than knowing less and the probabilistic forecast provides that extra information so crucial for inventory management. This video blog by Dr. Thomas Willemain explains each type of forecast and the advantages of probabilistic forecasting.

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Point forecast (green) shows what is most likely to happen.  The Interval Forecast shows the range (blue) of possibilities.

Probability Forecast shows the probability of each value occurring

Inventory planning parameters, such as safety stock levels, reorder points, Min/Max settings, lead times, order quantities, and DDMRP buffers directly impact inventory spending and ability to meet customer demand. Based on these parameter settings, your ERP system makes daily purchase order suggestions.

Ensuring that these inputs are understood and optimized regularly will substantially reduce wasteful inventory spending and dramatically improve customer service levels.

Given the importance of getting these planning parameters right, we spend a lot of time during our consultations asking (1) how these parameter values are calculated and (2) how often they are updated. Most often the methods for calculating the parameter values are rule of thumb. You can read about why using rule of thumb approaches is so problematic here  – Beware of Simple Rules of Thumb for Managing Inventory.

This blog will focus on the frequency of updates. When we interview companies and ask them how often they update planning parameters, the answer we nearly always hear is “every day!” A follow up question or two most often reveals that this just isn’t true. What “every day” actually means in practice is this: Every day, the ERP system suggests dozens to hundreds of purchase orders and/or production jobs. The planner, let’s call him Peter, reviews these orders daily and decides whether to release, modify, or cancel them. If the order suggestion doesn’t “feel right”, Peter reviews the planning inputs and modifies the order if necessary. For example, Peter may feel there is already enough inventory on hand. To “fix” the issue, he will reduce the reorder point and cancel the order. Or if he feels that the order should have been placed weeks ago, Peter may expedite the order and increase the reorder point and order quantity to ensure there will be plenty of stock the next time.

The principal flaws with this approach are that it is reactive and incomplete. Here is why:

Reactive

It only assesses the handful of items marked for replenishment on any given day but not others. The trigger for reviewing an item is when the ERP suggests an order, and that will only happen when the reorder point or Min is breached. If the Min is too high and breaches earlier than it should have, an unneeded order will be placed unless caught by the planner. If the Min is too low, well, it is too late to fix the error. No matter how large the order suggestion is, you still have to wait to be resupplied and since the order was suggested late, a stockout during the replenishment period is highly probable. Where is the “planning” in such a process? As one customer put it, “Our former process was, in hindsight, spent managing the outputs and not the inputs.”

Incomplete

What about the thousands of other items that have a Min/Max, safety Stock, Reorder Point, or other parameters that isn’t being reassessed given the updated demand and supply data. The planner isn’t reviewing any of these items which means problems aren’t being identified in advance. Compounding the problem is that when Peter does make a change he doesn’t have any tools to assess the quality of his changes. If he modifies the min/max settings he doesn’t know the specific impact this will have on inventory value, ordering costs, holding costs, stock outs, and service levels. He only knows that an increase in inventory will likely improve service and increase costs. He doesn’t know for example whether his inventory has reached a point of diminishing returns. When inventory decisions are made with only a very rough understanding of the trade offs it creates more problems downstream. You wouldn’t want your carpenter making rough estimates of their measurements yet it’s commonplace for inventory planning professionals to do so with millions of dollars in inventory spend at stake.

How Often Do Most Companies Update Parameters?

So how often do most companies make system-wide updates to their planning parameters such as reorder points, safety stocks, Min/Max settings, lead times, and order quantities? Typically, mass updates occur quarterly, annually, and in some cases never – the only times changes are made are when an order is triggered by ERP. Not exactly agile.

The biggest reason given for not intervening more often is that it takes too much time. Most companies set these key parameters using very unwieldy Excel programs or ERP applications that simply aren’t designed to conduct systemic inventory planning. This is where inventory optimization software can help.

Using inventory optimization software and probability forecasting to update key planning parameters frequently, say every week or month instead of quarterly or annually, enables you quickly respond to changes in your business. You can seize on cost saving opportunities, as when demand turns down and you can reduce reorder points and/or order quantities and possibly cancel outstanding orders. Or you can respond to problems, as when demand increases threaten your service level commitments to customers, or supplier lead times increase and require re-computation of reorder points.

How to do it Right

The key is establishing an agreed upon set of performance and inventory value metrics and letting the software monitor the state of play in the background and alert you to exceptional situations. This is simply one more way of saying that, once systems have been established, you want to go forward using management by exception. You can set ranges within which things can bubble along as they normally do, but once a critical parameter like “stock out risk exceeds a pre-defined level” or “inventory value or costs exceeds a pre-defined level,” the software can provide a daily alert and can also recommend a response, such as raising a reorder point. With this level of automated assistance, it becomes possible to keep your finger on the pulse of the inventory without being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data.

For example, you may choose an initial set of inventory parameters as the policy because you could see from the software that it meets your service level goals within your inventory budget. You may let the system prescribe service level targets for you and be comfortable with the settings because inventory value is within the budget. However, if demand gets less predictable than historically, you won’t be able to achieve the same level of service without an increase in inventory. An exception report will identify this and enable you to make an informed decision on what to do. You can decide to modify the policy or keep it the same. If you keep it the same, you now know the additional risks and change in inventory costs. This can be communicated to all stake holders so that there aren’t any surprises.

Plan Don’t React

Rather than being constantly in reactive mode, you can handle what really needs to be handled and still have some time to do forward thinking. For instance, you can do “what if” analyses on such issues as which supplier lead times would yield the biggest payoff if reduced, or whether service level targets should be adjusted to account for shifts in customer criticality, or similar policy issues. After all, it’s not as if you are not going to end up with a full daily agenda, it’s just a question of whether you can elevate that agenda to a more strategic level. So if you are spending all of your “planning” time managing the outputs of your ERP instead of constructively reviewing and optimizing the inputs, it is time to reassess your inventory planning process.

Service level is a key performance indicator for companies that put a premium on satisfying customer demand. Service level is defined as the probability of surviving a replenishment lead time without stocking out.

Inventory management best practice begins with setting service level targets, then calculates reorder points (also called Mins) to achieve those targets. These calculations should account for variability in both demand and replenishment lead time. There are many software systems available for doing these calculations. If everything works out, the achieved service level ends up very close to the target service level. Unfortunately, there is often a painful gap between the two.

One reason for the gap is unrealistic models of demand. In many cases, software for calculating reorder points uses textbook formulas based on mathematical assumptions that make analysis simple at the expense of realism.  Many “Inventory 101” textbooks use formulas that assume demand has a Normal distribution (a.k.a. the “bell-shaped curve”) for finished goods and the Poisson distribution for spare parts. Fortunately, there are now inventory optimization and forecasting systems that process the actual demand histories of the inventory items using probabilistic forecasting.  These solutions calculate an accurate estimate of the distribution – not some idealized version.  To learn more check out this past blog on probabilistic forecasting:

But there is a second source of error in textbooks that operates invisibly in many inventory software package:  “undershoot”.

Calculations of reorder points almost always assume that stockouts arise when the total demand during a replenishment interval exceeds the reorder point. For example, assume that demand averages 1 unit per day. If lead time is 5 days, then on average lead time demand is 5 units. Setting the reorder point at 5 units would yield a laughable service level somewhere in the vicinity of 50%. Adding safety stock to the calculation might result in a reorder point of, say, 11 units, which might correspond to a service level of 95%. Another way to say this is, starting at a reorder point of 11 units, there should be a 95% chance of surviving the 5 day lead time without experiencing cumulative demand of more than 11 units. Theoretically!

What’s missing from this analysis is the undershoot phenomenon. Undershoot means that the lead time begins not at the reorder point but below it. Undershoot happens every time the demand that breached the reorder point took the stock down below (not down to) the reorder point. The figure below shows replenishment cycles with and without undershoot.  Undershoot picks your pocket before you even begin to roll the dice. It deludes the inventory professional into thinking his or her reorder points are sufficient to achieve their targets, whereas actual performance will not make the grade.

There is only one situation in which undershoot is not a worry: when demand is always either zero or one unit. In that case, undershoot is impossible. But in all other cases, undershoot is sure to happen to some extent, and it can seriously undercut the service level actually achieved by a given choice of reorder point. Our analyses show that the conditions most vulnerable to undershoot involve highly intermittent and skewed demand with very short lead times – the very conditions being made most common by market trends.

What can be done to protect yourself from the effect of undershoot on reorder point calculations?  Use inventory optimization and forecasting software that isn’t tied to the old textbook assumptions and instead automatically accounts for undershoot when calculating the service level produced by any choice of reorder point.

To see Smart Software’s Inventory Optimization solution in action, register to see a recorded demo below: