Search Results for: supply-planning

  • How to Best Understand The Limitations of MRP Based ERP Systems

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … issues with inventory visibility due to the limited user interface of most ERP systems for planning.
    Do not remove invalid product location combinations from the system leaving large numbers of unarchived combinations.
    Lack of the ability to effectively group product location combinations.
    If one looks at specific systems that perform supply planning, they outperform ERP-based MRP in how the user interface is designed for performing supply planning by a wide margin. ERP vendors primarily live off the integration argument, not feeling the necessity to improve, particularly the supply chain/operational aspects of their software versus their software’s financial …

  • Comparing PP/DS to Simio for Production Scheduling

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … article. PP/DS reduces the simulation performed at companies because of its overhead and how simulation is set up. I describe how much easier simulation is incomparable products in my book on supply planning.
    Newer production planning and scheduling applications allow the simulation to be performed by simply having the simulation as a separate tab in the planner’s interface. The planner was able to switch between what-if scenarios. This is a functionality resident within the production planning and scheduling application PlanetTogether. Simio’s approach is entirely different from all other applications in this space that I am …

  • The Art of Blaming the Client When an SAP Project Goes South

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … is created for implementing too much complexity.

    Example From the Field
    I recently consulted with a company that had never been able to get MRP work and instead used the ERP systems to “record” what they had done rather than plan anything in advance. MRP is the simplest form of supply planning.
    This same company decided to go forward with implementing SNP, a more advanced form of supply planning, and they bombed the implementation.
    Injecting Reality into IT Decision Making
    When reading books or articles that explain functionality, I notice a clear orientation to describe the functionality only in terms …

  • Our Book on Software Forecasting Parameters

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … Introduction
    Chapter 2: Where Forecasting Fits in the Supply Chain Footprint
    Chapter 3: Statistical Forecasting Explained
    Chapter 4: Forecast Parameters
    Chapter 5: Introduction to Best Fit Forecasting
    Chapter 6: Conclusion

    Table of Contents
    Chapter 1: Introduction

    Important Terminology: The Approach to the Book

    Chapter 2: Where Forecasting Fits in the Supply Chain Planning Footprint

    Background
    Where Demand Planning Software within Supply Chain Software
    The Demand Planning Application Categories
    The Forecast Category, Method and Model Employed
    Connecting the Demand Planning System to Supply Planning
    Conclusion

    Chapter 3: Statistical Forecasting Explained

    The Initial Attempts at Demand Planning Software Implementation
    What Makes …

  • Book on How to Best Setup Safety Stock and Service Levels

    ByPrimary Researcher

    Safety Stock and Service Levels: A New Approach
    Screenshots and examples from SAP APO, Demand Works Smoothie, 3S. 
    What the Book is About
    A thoroughly researched explanation of how to leverage safety stock in systems for supply planning. This book explains many of the great misunderstandings that surround safety stock, including the aspect of safety stock that is missed on many practitioners. Safety stock is one of the most discussed inventory management parameters in supply chain management. However, safety stock is set very inefficiently at most companies. This observation comes from reviewing the safety stock settings at many companies on …

  • Is it Possible to Use DP and PP/DS Without SNP?

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … implemented takes effort, time and money, and of course, maintenance.
    What was recently proposed to me was to implement DP with PP/DS, but without SNP. It is not hard to consider how the ERP system, DNP, and SNP flows would appear, as I have shown below.

    PP/DS’s Supply Planning Capabilities
    Secondly, there are capabilities that PP/DS has that do cover supply planning.
    PP/DS generally has a short planning horizon. However, the planning horizon is flexible, as can be seen in the screenshots below:

    This is the PP/DS tab in the Product Location Master in …

  • Supply Chain Inventory Turn Benchmarking

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … list — and would not consider them as leaders in supply chain management by any stretch of the imagination. One of them I recall was mentioned for following forecasting best practices in a prominent article. The author did not know what you would have to have worked within the company to know. Is the forecast accuracy arrived at by altering the forecast to match the actual after the supply planning window has passed? The demand planning group is falsifying the forecast accuracy within this company.
    The Reliability of Self-Reported Metric Scores
    The problem with relying upon self-reported information, which

  • Book on How to Repair Your MRP System

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … Book
    The Brightwork Research & Analysis Site
    Intended Audience
    Abbreviations
    Corrections
    Conclusion

    Chapter 2: The Opportunity to Improve MRP

    The General Knowledge Level of MRP
    Who Manages the Policies of the Supply Chain Systems?
    Background on the Financial Returns of MRP Systems
    The Believability of the Results
    Conclusion

    Chapter 3: Where Supply Planning Fits Within Supply Chain Planning
    Chapter 4: What is MRP II

    What is MRP II?
    The Focus of MRP II
    Conclusion

    Chapter 5: MRP  Explained
    Chapter 6: Net Requirements and Pegging in MRP

    Spreadsheet Steps to Creating the Product-Location Spreadsheet/Database
    Visibility in Supply Planning Systems
    Conclusion …

  • How to Understand Forecasting in SAP SuccessFactors

    ByPrimary Researcher

    … application. However, it could be ported to any forecasting application, which also had supply planning to identify the problematic products in a database. 
    Finally, SuccessFactors can perform a capacity analysis.

    This application is marketed to companies. However, it could be used by governments to plan how they fund academic departments. Currently, the system for allocating students to programs is divorced from the need. Naturally, students will often want to study what is easy to pass. So they can say “they have a degree” or what is interesting to them or base what they rumor survey rather than relying on …

  • The Location Versus the Network Heuristic in SAP

    ByPrimary Researcher

    Executive Summary

    The SNP network heuristic is used for the initial supply plan.
    There are different flavors of running the network heuristic with either the location heuristic or the network heuristic.
    This highlights the need to consider how the supply planning problem is divided or decomposed by different methods.

    Introduction
    The SNP Heuristic is one of the three ways to perform supply planning in SNP, the others being optimization and CTM. The SNP Heuristic is often referred to as just that, yet, in fact, the SNP Heuristic can be run in two different ways. This is evident from the settings …