Smart Software to Present at Epicor Insights 2022
Smart Software President and CEO to present Epicor Insights 2022 Sessions on Creating Competitive Advantage with Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization
Belmont, MA, May, 2022 – Smart Software, Inc., provider of industry-leading demand forecasting, planning, and inventory optimization solutions, today announced that it will present at Epicor Insights 2022.
Greg Hartunian, CEO of Smart Software, will present two sessions and will explain Epicor Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization at this year’s Epicor Insights event in Nashville, TN. Greg will show how to empower planning teams to reduce inventory, improve service levels, and increase operational efficiency.
- The Prophet 21 presentation is scheduled for Wed May 25th, 11:30 am -12:15 pm (CST)
- The Kinetic presentation is scheduled for Wed May 25th, 2:30 pm – 3:20 pm (CST)
If you plan to attend this year, please join us at either session below and learn more about Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization as we highlight valuable features in our solutions. Epicor Insights 2022 will bring together more than 2,000 users of Epicor’s industry-specific ERP solutions for the manufacturing, distribution, and service industries. To learn more, visit INSIGHTS 2022.
Smart Software is an Epicor Platinum Partner and leading provider of demand planning, forecasting, inventory optimization, and analytics solutions. Our web platform, Smart IP&O, leverages probabilistic forecast modeling, machine learning, and collaborative demand planning to optimize inventory levels and increase forecast accuracy. You’ll use Smart IP&O to create accurate forecasts and optimal stocking policies that drive automated ordering in Epicor. The platform includes bi-directional integrations to both Epicor ERP and Prophet 21.
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 Otis Elevator, 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
Smart Software and Arizona Public Service to Present at WERC 2022
Smart Software CEO and APS Inventory & Logistics Manager to present WERC 2022 Studio Session on implementing Smart IP&O in 90 Days and achieving significant savings by optimizing reorder points and order quantities for over 250,000 spare parts.
Belmont, MA, March 2022 – Smart Software, Inc., provider of industry-leading demand forecasting, planning, and inventory optimization solutions, today announced that it will present at WERC 2022.
Justin Danielson, Inventory & Logistics Manager at Arizona Public Service (APS), and Greg Hartunian, CEO at Smart Software, will lead a 30-minute studio session at WERC 2022. The presentation will focus on how APS implemented Smart Inventory Planning and Optimization (Smart IP&O) as part of the company’s strategic supply chain optimization initiative. Smart IP&O was implemented in just 90 days, enabling APS to optimize its reorder points and order quantities for over 250,000 spare parts. During the first phase of the implementation, the platform helped APS reduce inventory and achieve significant savings while maintaining service levels. Finally, the session will conclude by showing Smart IP&O in a Live Demo.
Warehousing Education and Research Council (WERC)
WERC is a professional organization focused on logistics management and its role in the supply chain. Since being founded in 1977, WERC has maintained a strategic vision to continuously offer resources that help distribution practitioners and suppliers stay on top in our dynamic, variable field. In an increasingly complex world, distribution logistics professionals make sense of things so that people get their products and services, companies deliver on their commitments, economies grow, and communities thrive.
WERC powers distribution logistics professionals to do their jobs, excel in their careers and make a difference in the world. WERC helps its members and companies succeed by creating unparalleled learning experiences, offering quality networking opportunities, and accessing research-driven industry information.
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 Otis Elevator, 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,
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
Optimizing Inventory around Suppliers´ Minimum Order Quantities
Recently, I had an interesting conversation with an inventory manager and the VP Finance. We were discussing the benefits of being able to automatically optimize both reorder points and order quantities. The VP Finance was concerned that given their large supplier required minimum order quantities, they would not be able to benefit. He said his suppliers held all the power, forcing him to accept massive minimum order quantities and tying his hands. While he felt bad about this, he saw a silver lining: He didn’t have to do any planning. He would accept a large inventory investment, but his customer service levels would be exceptional. Perhaps the large inventory investment was assumed to be the cost of doing business.
I pushed back and pointed out that he was not as powerless as he felt. He still had control of the other half of the procurement process: while he couldn’t control how much to order, he could control when to order by adjusting the reorder point. In other words, there is always room for careful quantitative analysis in inventory management, even when you have one hand tied behind your back.
An Example
To put some numbers behind my argument, I created a scenario then analyzed it using our methodology to show how consequential it can be to use inventory optimization software even in constrained situations. In this scenario, item demand averages 2.2 units per day but varies significantly by day of week. Let’s say the imaginary supplier insists on a minimum order quantity of 500 units (way out of proportion to demand) and fills replenishment orders in either three days or ten days in equal proportions (quite inconsistent). To spread the blame around, let’s also suppose that the imaginary supplier’s imaginary customer uses a foolish rule that the reorder point should be 10% of the minimum order quantity. (Why this rule? Too many companies use simple/simplistic rules of thumb in lieu of proper analysis.)
So, we have a base case in which the order quantity is 500 units, and the reorder point is 50 units. In this case, the fill rate is 100%, but the average number of units on hand is a whopping 330. If the customer would simply lower the reorder point from 50 to 15, the fill rate would still be 99.5%, but the average stock on hand would drop by 11% to 295 units. Using the one hand not tied behind his back, the inventory manager could cut his inventory investment by more than 10%, which would be a noticeable win.
Incidentally, if the minimum order quantity were abolished, the customer would be free to arrive at a new and much better solution. Setting the order quantity to 45 and the reorder point to 25 would achieve a 99% fill rate at the cost of a daily on-hand level of only 35 units: nearly a 90% reduction in inventory investment: a major improvement over the status quo.
Postscript
These calculations are possible using our software, which can make visible the otherwise unknown relationships between inventory system design choices (e.g., order quantity and reorder point) and key performance indicators (e.g., average units on hand and fill rate). Armed with this ability to conduct these calculations, alternative arrangements with the supplier may now be considered. For example, what if, in exchange for paying a higher price per unit, the supplier agreed to a lower MOQ. Using the software to conduct an analysis of the key performance indicators using the “what if” costs and MOQs would reveal the cost per unit and MOQ that would be needed to develop a more profitable deal. Once identified, all parties stand to benefit. The supplier now generates a better margin on sales of its products, and the buyer holds considerably less inventory yielding a holding cost reduction that dwarfs the added cost per unit. Everyone wins.
Smart Software VP of Research to Present at Business Analytics Conference, INFORMS 2022
Dr. Tom Willemain to lead INFORMS session “Dominating The Inventory Battlefield: Fighting Randomness With Randomness.”
Belmont, Mass., March 2022 – 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 INFORMS Business Analytics Conference, April 3-5, 2022, in Houston, TX.
Dr. Willemain will present a session on how next-generation analytics arms supply chain leaders in manufacturing, distribution, and MRO with tools to fight against randomness in demand and supply. During his session he will detail the following technologies:
(1) Regime change filtering to maintain data relevance against sudden shifts in the operating environment.
(2) Bootstrapping methods to generate large numbers of realistic demand and lead time scenarios to fuel models.
(3) Discrete event simulations to process the input scenarios and expose the links between management actions and key performance indicators.
(4) Stochastic optimization based on simulation experiments to tune each item for best results.
Without the analytics, inventory owners have two choices: sticking with rigid operating policies usually based on outdated and invalid rules of thumb or resorting to subjective, gut-feel guesswork that may not help and does not scale.
As the leading Business Analytics Conference, INFORMS provides the opportunity to interact with the world’s top forecasting researchers and practitioners. The attendance is large enough so that the best in the field are attracted, yet small enough that you can meet and discuss one-on-one. In addition, the conference features content from leading analytics professionals who share and showcase top analytics applications that save lives, save money, and solve problems.
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 Ph.D. 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 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 Disney, Otis Elevator, Hitachi, Siemens, Metro Transit, APS, and The American Red Cross. 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.
SmartForecasts and Smart IP&O have registered trademarks of Smart Software, Inc. All other trademarks are their respective owners’ property.
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
Smart Software named a Microsoft Co-sell-ready partner
Inventory Optimization and Demand Planning now more accessible to extend Microsoft Dynamics
Belmont, Mass., February 2022 – Smart Software is pleased to announce that it has been named a Microsoft Co-sell-ready partner as a leading demand planning and inventory optimization solutions provider. Microsoft customers leverage Smart’s web-native platform for Inventory Planning and Optimization (Smart IP&O) to develop consensus forecasts, manage demand, and optimize stocking policies.
Co-selling with Microsoft sales teams and Microsoft partners will empower the Smart Software’s team to reach a vast community of Microsoft-managed customers to collaborate on various opportunities. This process includes building demand, sales planning, sharing sales leads, accelerating partner-to-partner empowered selling, and delivering marketplace-led commerce. Smart IP&O leverages field-proven analytics, probabilistic modeling, and the latest advancements in forecasting technology to predict future demand, prescribe optimal stocking policies, and identify opportunities for operational improvement. Users can transfer forecast results, order quantities, and stocking policies to Microsoft Dynamics in a few mouse clicks helping build additional value and extend the life of their Microsoft Solutions.
Greg Hartunian, CEO of Smart Software, stated, “The abilities to dynamically identify discontinuities in demand and supplier lead times, prescribe optimal stocking policies that yield the most profit, and accelerate planning frequency, are especially critical and central in today’s hyper fluid supply chains. As a result, customers leveraging Smart IP&O can effectively wield inventory assets, improve their operations, lower costs, improve customer service, and outperform the competition. We look forward to working closely with Microsoft to help our joint customers achieve these key benefits.
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 Otis Elevator, 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
