Executive Summary
- Forecasting and MRP systems universally require tuning to run properly.
- The Brightwork Explorer is designed to make these systems more usable and controllable.
Introduction
The Brightwork Explorer makes forecasting systems and MRP systems run better.
Specialized for Measuring Forecast Error
Most forecasting systems are designed to produce forecasts, not to measure error. They have basic error measurement, but that is not the same as purpose-building to measure forecast error specifically.
Brightwork Explorer is perfect for measuring any forecast error.
This includes:
- Statistical forecasting in different time buckets.
- Statistical forecasts from top-down techniques.
- Statistical forecasts using different history (for instance, sales orders versus consumption)
- Determining the statistical forecastability of different locations in the supply network (which may lead to placing forecasts in locations different from their current locations).
- Determining which data streams to use for generating a forecast (for example, orders versus bookings or goods issues)
- Testing historical removal — that is, removing history that is nonrepresentative to improve pattern recognition.
- Sales forecasts
- Marketing forecasts
- Etc..
Specialized for Tuning MRP Parameters
ERP systems and even advanced planning systems normally do not provide high-level descriptive statistics that are important and figuring out supply chain planning quality and areas to improve. Rather, they are focused on meeting the needs of planners often to evaluate specific product location combinations. It is surprising how many vendors have missed the critical workflows that are standard in Brightwork Explorer.
- Brightwork Explorer can tell you how efficiently your inventory is being deployed.
- It can tell you where you are over-investing in stock.
- It can tell you where you are under-investing in inventory.
Our parameter calculation/optimization allows for MRP and other supply planning systems to be quickly tuned.
We thought, why not place this intelligence into a SaaS application that does all those things in one place?
What We Developed
So what we have developed is (to our knowledge) one of the only forecast diagnostic and improvement applications. The Brightwork Forecast Explorer is not designed to replace your existing forecasting system. It is designed to make your current forecasting system work better!