Customer forecasting enhancement for Value Add

Using customer forecasting, you can accommodate anticipated new sales in addition to the actual usage for the previous 25 months when you factor anticipated volume and its effect on replenishment recommendations for the next 12 months. When you use customer forecasting, the total forecast quantity to order or transfer for all active forecasts is now included in the replenishment recommendations of the VA Entry Recommended Replenishment Report. This customer forecast quantity is used to calculate the order point and line point for replenishment, and it now displays on the report.

However, this report currently only reviews forecasts for the period specified when the replenishment function is run. It does not consider forecasts outside of the date range for which the report is run. This does not allow distributors to procure inventory needed when customer forecast periods start, especially for products with longer lead times.

This enhancement includes controls to allow consideration of product lead times for VA products when calculating the impact of customer forecast usage on VA replenishment recommendations.

Two options in SA Administrator Options-Products-Replenishment can be used when you run the VA Entry Recommended Replenishment Report. When Include Lead Time is selected, a product’s lead time is added to the current date when searching for active customer forecasts to include in the replenishment report.

A second option, Ramp Up Days, can be used to specify the number of days to add to the calculated forecast date when searching for active forecasts. This is optional and is recommended when products have particularly long lead times.

Feature activation

To include accurate replenishment calculations in the VA Entry Recommended Replenishment Report, set up customer forecasts in Product Customer Reservation/Forecast Setup and set up the VA fabricated product's Average Lead Time in Product Warehouse Product Setup.

Enable these options in SA Administrator-Products-Replenishment for customer forecasting:
  • Include Lead Time?
  • Ramp Up Days

If Include Lead Time is not selected, then lead times are not added to the start and end dates when searching for active forecasts, and the calculations used to determine the quantity to replenish for forecasts is unchanged.