Companies requiring rolling forecasts regularly and would like to automate these processes
Sales managers with the need of fast and efficient overview of the plan and fact sales data
Logistics experts creating demand based forecasts
For the proper decision making on expensive production and/or logistics
Aim of the project
Providing accurate rolling forecasts for a huge amount of products on monthly basis is a challenging procedure for all companies. Plan@ is a web-based forecasting solution that makes it possible to produce forecasts for the different level of sales (e.g. in- or to-country sales) for all of the products which is very helpful e.g. for stock optimization or planning processes.
Technical details
Plan@ is a web application. Since all of the resource-critical processes are run on the server, forecasts can be executed by using a client computer. Our application has been developed with a focus on modularity; extending and tailoring are easy in order to fit any corporate need.
With the support of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) authentication technologies, such as SmartCards/USB Tokens, together with Plan@’s access control management, every action in the system can be tracked and linked to the corresponding end-user.
Results
An integrated software aligned with to the company’s ERP system
Reliable and regular automatic forecasts (that can be reviewed and adjusted by the experts) for the complete product portfolio of the company
Segmented products according to the accuracy of their automatic forecasts to ease up the expert’s intervention
Built-in reports like “fact versus forecast” or stock report
DOs and DON’Ts
Do
Delegate professional logistics and analyst experts for the project, who are conversant with the product portfolio
Ensure consistent input data like plan, production and shipment data
Don’t
Do not insist on stuffing all information into the application and also avoid “overteaching” the algorithms
Involve planning experts as late as you can into the project and manage the communication carefully
Do not underestimate data experts’ role during the implementation
Why we are different
Utilizing predictive techniques: the past events and effects learned and projected to the future
Seasonality and many different additive components are handled
Using artificial intelligence algorithms for finding the trend-breaks and the best fit trends
Easy-to-use interface, no statistician competence required
Application is a result of customer oriented development and deep analyst competence
The application has been successfully implemented in many countries
