Concepts

Outcome

An Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast in M3 BE that is based on forecasting close to the end-customers and has been consolidated. The Sales Budget/Sales Forecast is feasible with regards to the physical constraints in the supply chain and is a consensus between sales, supplying units and other forecast participants. It can be transferred to forecasts per item in the Forecasting module or in the Master Demand Schedule.

The forecasts per item are treated as manually specified forecasts and are used in M3 BE.

Forecast activities performed in M3 DMP do not affect M3 Business Engine. The M3 Business Engine is only affected when exporting data from M3 DMP. See Exporting Consolidated Sales Forecast Proposal and Transferring Updated Sales Budget.

Purpose

M3 DMP offers a tool to perform cyclic forecasting in a collaborative environment. All forecast participants are involved in the process of creating an Updated Sales Budget/Sales Forecast to be used throughout the supply chain. M3 DMP ensures the integration in each cycle by supporting a distributed process flow, where the forecast participants perform tasks according to their role in the process.

The distributed process flow utilizes the strength of gathering information close to the end-customers while still maintaining control of the extended supply chain. The collaborative approach ensures that the market forecast is passed directly down the supply chain and that the  Sales Budget/Sales Forecast is in a consensus between sales and supplying units. This process of demand planning ensures the feasibility of the Sales Budget/Sales Forecast and seeks to avoid demand ripple effects to keep safety stock levels steady.

Structure

In the following sections the basic elements when working with M3 DMP are presented. This includes:

• An introduction to the client-server architecture in M3 DMP.
• An overview of the process flow in a forecast cycle is given along with a description of the different user roles.
• The information flow throughout the forecast cycle is explained in detail.

Client-server Architecture

M3 DMP has a client-server architecture to support the distributed forecasting process flow as shown in the figure below. All users (administrators and forecasters) work on their local M3 DMP Client installations. A M3 DMP Client installation includes a data area where data and information can be stored locally on the computer. Data can also be stored on the M3 DMP server. On the M3 DMP server and in the local data areas, delimited collections of data and information are stored in versions. Figure 1

M3 DMP Server Access

A user can have access to the M3 DMP server as a server administrator. A server administrator has full access to all data on the M3 DMP server from his M3 DMP Client installation. All other users only have access to that part of the M3 DMP server where forecast packages are stored. Also, server administrators have access to extended functionality such as user administration, phantoms and import/export from M3 BE and so on.

Communication through M3 DMP server

Server administrators control the information flow to/from the M3 DMP server. The information flow between M3 BE and the M3 DMP server is conducted through the exchange of Datasets. The communication between a server administrator and the forecasters is conducted by exchanging forecast packages between the M3 DMP server and the M3 DMP Client installations.

Version Roles

A user is assigned a role on each Version on the M3 DMP server. The available version roles are:

• Administrator
• Forecaster
• Viewer

The server access of a user delimits the version roles the user can be assigned. Only users with administrator server access can be assigned a version role as administrator. The version role determines what rights the user can be assigned to the Datasets in the version. See About User Roles.

Dataset Rights

A Version contains data in Datasets in addition to other data and information. Each user is assigned Dataset rights to each Dataset in a version. The available Dataset rights are:

• Change
• View
• None

The version role of a user delimits the Dataset rights assigned to the user. Only users with administrator or forecaster version roles can be assigned change rights. Users with change rights can add changes to values in the Datasets while users with view rights can only open Datasets as read-only. When a forecaster is given the Dataset right as 'None'  then that Dataset will not appear in the navigation menu. See Define user dataset access.

Process flow of a Forecast Cycle

The idea of collaborative demand planning in M3 DMP is that information used for demand planning throughout the supply chain is gathered as close to the end-customers as possible. Forecasters located near the markets perform the detailed forecasting. A central administrator controls the activities in the forecast cycle.

The person(s) performing each step in the process flow are shown in the figure. Administrators and forecasters refer to the version roles described above (note that a version administrator must also be a server administrator). Other forecast participants can be assigned version roles as, for example, viewers if they have an M3 DMP installation. These are the description of roles in the forecast cycle:

• Administrator
  • Controls the process flow in a forecast cycle.
  • Controls the flow of information (import and export of data).
  • Builds forecast packages.
  • Combines Market Forecast Proposals into a Sales Forecast Proposal.
  • Facilitates consensus-seeking process.
• Forecaster
  • Makes a Market Forecast Proposal for his area of responsibility.
  • Participates in consensus-seeking process.
• Other Forecast Participants
  • Participate in consensus-seeking process.

Information Flow

This section describes the information flow during a forecast cycle, these are the links that will take you through the complete forecast cycle:

• Import Dataset from M3 BE to M3 DMP
• Distribution of Forecast Packages and Market Forecast Proposals
• Create Sales Forecast Proposal
• Export data to M3 BE.