Search Results for: forecasting

  • How To Best Understand SAP as Legacy for Software Companies

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … the appropriate statistical forecasting model, is not reliable enough to use in a production environment. Yet consulting companies continue to bill clients for using and tuning problematic functionality that can be accessed far more robustly outside of SAP, with the results ported back to SAP DP.

    This is how bad the information sharing is on issues is in the SAP space.
    The Problem with SAP’s Flexibility
    SAP systems significantly reduce the flexibility of their customers. With indirect access, SAP can control which applications are connected to SAP applications. This dawning awareness of SAP’s inflexibility is highlighted in …

  • How to Best Understand to Replenish or Replenishment in SAP

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … use forecast error to drive reductions in forecast error across the entire product location database. Companies are normally unable to address known forecast bias (as we cover in the article How to Understand Forecast Bias), for fear or political reprisals by the powerful and most biased entities in terms of forecasting in the majority of companies: sales and marketing. This is only one example of the lack of application of known methods for improving planning, there are many more.
    Where Are Execution Triggers Located?

    Execution triggers exist in both ERP systems and warehouse management or WM systems.
    One example of …

  • How to Best Understand Expedited Shipping Freight Rates and Freight Costs

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … work based on make to stock (which is quite rare), produce a forecast. Companies pay the price for prediction inaccuracy, but they do not get a “bill” where forecast error is outlined — unfortunately.
    Few companies employ anywhere close to the number of necessary techniques for attaining a reasonable level of forecasting accuracy. However, how would a company know the appropriate level of money to invest in forecasting?

    Finding the Reason for Expedited Shipping
    Yet when you try to determine how much money was spent in different areas for the cost of forecast inaccuracy, it becomes quite difficult to do. If …

  • The Secret to Not Talking About The Cost of SAP HANA

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … with so many companies that don’t have the budget for really logical, simple things. I could provide a list of items ranging from the bill of material management software to forecasting software with a much higher payback than a HANA purchase and implementation. One of my clients could not put in fundamental improvements that I recommended and was hoping for free stuff from me because they were so budget-constrained. The things they could not afford were lengthy. They could not hire or pay their planners well enough, could not maintain their current systems, could not provide a forecasting

  • The Lack of Advice Setting Up Global SAP System

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … Global SAP SNP Instance
    Considerable effort and forethought are required to set up a global SAP instance correctly. Very few individuals are qualified to make these guesses about what all global SAP processing times will be. Even highly experienced resources that have decades of experience in this area have difficulty forecasting global SAP batch job times because of the variations between companies and methods employed that any resources draw upon to make their predictions.
    A global SAP instance of SNP makes the overall setup much more difficult because multiple time zones cut into the processing time available for SNP. SNP …

  • Introduction to SAP APO DP

    ByPrimary Researcher

    Executive Summary

    Demand Planning or DP covers forecasting is SAP APO’s most popular application.
    We cover the basic functionality and concepts of SAP DP.

    Introduction
    In this article, you’ll get a high-level overview of the entire SAP APO DP.
    For some time, the main area of differentiation between forecasting software was the algorithm used to drive the results. However, over the past few years, software companies began using more sophisticated databases that allowed fast response times for looking and forecasting at different levels in the product, location, and time dimensions.
    How SAP DP Can be Implemented
    SAP …

  • Introduction to SAP APO

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … fact, when performing SAP APO diagnostics on accounts, the amount of functionality implemented within an SAP APO application is usually surprisingly small. For example, I have seen SAP Demand Planning (DP) implemented to act as a container for the forecasts from other systems, but it performs no forecasting itself. And I have seen PP/DS used only to level production output and nothing else. There’s nothing wrong with this, and implementing even small functionality areas can be beneficial to a company because each of the applications can be used for narrow or broad implementations.
    For now, let’s …

  • Our Book on Sales and Operations Planning in Software

    ByPrimary Researcher

    Sales and Operations Planning in Software
    What the Book Covers
    Getting Clear on S&OP
    S&OP is commonly discussed, yet an infrequently mastered area of planning. S&OP continues to be one of the most misused and overused terms in business.
    S&OP is a type of long-term planning that attempts to match supply and demand and provides input to a financial plan to support the firm’s overall strategy. S&OP is, in part, a subcategory of consensus-based forecasting. It means driving to a consensus on what are branches within the company or entity that are …

  • Book on How to Perform Capacity Planning in MRP, APS & S&OP Software

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … the Product-Location Combinations
    Forward Scheduling and Capacity Leveling
    Scheduling Direction and PP/DS
    Conclusion

    Chapter 6: Capacity Planning with S&OP and the MPS

    Capacity Leveling, S&OP, and Aggregation
    The Pros and Cons of Detailed Planning
    Unconstrained Planning
    System Overlap and Planning Domain Expertise
    Research into Consensus-Based Forecasting by RAND

    Chapter 7: The Relationship Between Planning Systems
    Chapter 8: Conclusion

    Buy Now
    Questions about the Book? 
    Do you have any questions about the book? If so, please comment below, and we will address your questions.

  • The Problem with Promotion Management Software

    ByPrimary Researcher

    Executive Summary

    Trade promotion management software is a problem because it increases the number of promotions but does not typically integrate into the forecasting system.

    On Trade Promotion Management Software
    Software vendors ranging from JDA to IBM to Junction Solutions make promotion management software, and this category of software is quite broadly implemented at CPG clients. These applications are singularly focused on allowing companies to implement increased numbers of and increased complexity of promotions. However, these applications do nothing to update the promotion information in the forecasting system. Of course, any system can have its data extracted and put into …