Overview

M3 Inventory Planning Workbench or IPW is a Web Mashup application that is designed to provide support to material and product inventory planning in manufacturing and distribution companies.

IPW has two user interfaces:

• Inventory Planning Workbench (Classic)
• Inventory Planning Workbench

The new IPW is required because the IPW classic platform is going to be decommissioned in the future. For a period, IPW can run in the classic or the new UI, and all existing IPW configuration works simultaneously. The new UI is aligned with the new M3 BE H5 UI design to provide an improved and consistent user experience. This guide identifies the difference in scope.

This table shows how this application offers support to different roles and processes in a company:

Role	Support
Production planners	A master scheduler viewer and planning tool that is focused on the availability and inventory levels of selected items.
Customer service	An overview for inventory availability. The application indicates the items that are available to sell and push for versus the items that are low in inventory level where potential shortage can occur.
Buyers	Forecast a time-phased inventory projection across different items that are grouped per supplier.