Consolidating Demand Plan Proposal

Outcome

A consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal is exported to M3 Business Engine as an Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast. The consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal respects capacity constraints and exploits opportunities in the supply chain and is accepted for use throughout the supply chain.

The Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast is transferred to forecasts per item in the Forecasting module or the Master Demand Schedule in M3 BE.

Any forecast activities performed in M3 DMP do not affect M3 BE. The M3 BE is only affected when exporting data from M3 DMP: The Datasets originally imported to M3 DMP is replaced with the Updated Sales Budgets/Sales Forecast exported from M3 DMP. See Exporting consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal.

Before starting

A Sales Forecast Proposal comprising one scenario per Dataset must be available. The process explained in Performing Collaborative Forecasting is performed to achieve this. See Creating Sales Forecast Proposal.

How the Sales Forecast Proposal is consolidated in the supply chain and how commitment to the plan is achieved is specific for each organization. The activities described below represent merely one way of achieving this but serves to introduce the range of tools available for this consensus-seeking process.

Activity Description

1. Checking capacity availability

   In this process, necessary adjustments of the Sales Forecast Proposal are identified through the interface to M3 Supply Chain Planner. These adjustments arise from inability to meet the forecasted demands due to capacity or supply constraints in the supply chain. This is identified through supply chain planning based on the Demand Plan Proposal in M3 SCP. The result is a Capacity Adjusted Forecast that is returned to M3 DMP.

   If requested by the administrator, Opportunity Planning and Best Sales Opportunity Planning can also be performed on the Capacity Adjusted Forecast in M3 SCP. The result is suggestions for utilization of excess capacity for additional production enabling promotions and campaigns.

2. Reaching collaborative consensus

   This consensus-seeking process is aimed at reaching a final Sales Forecast Proposal, which is consolidated and accepted for use throughout the supply chain. The capacity adjustments and identified opportunities from M3 SCP initiate the adjustments of the Sales Forecast Proposal in a collaborative, negotiating process including the administrator, the forecasters and the supplying units. The result is a consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal comprising one scenario for each Dataset including all changes that have been accepted.

3. Exporting consolidated Demand Plan Proposal

   When a consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal has been agreed upon, this process is conducted to export it back to M3 BE as an Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast. This includes selecting phantoms to export, confirming the scenarios in the consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal, and exporting the M3 DMP Datasets to M3 BE. To obtain a complete Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast in the original M3 BE Dataset all committed changes (scenarios) must be exported. Thus, all M3 DMP Datasets that were imported from the M3 BE Dataset must be exported.