Inventory Management and Forecasting Apps
We are a food and snack company and we sell directly to retailers. Can anyone recommend an app that can assist us with inventory management and specifically with forecasting and demand planning based on the shipment windows of our sales orders? We would also like the ability to track our containers on the water, share BOLs, etc. We would love an easy user interface for our team with a dashboard and calendar to track containers and delivery windows as well. Thank you!
Answers
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Hi @Monark
that is quite a specific request, so you will not find a free app in the AppHub that ticks off all your requirements (and I dare to say there is no paid app either at the moment). Besides that, and given your specific needs, you would need to develop some functionalities in your model,either you are building on top of an existing pre-built app or you are starting from scratch.
That being said, there are a couple of apps that give you a jump-start by covering some of your needs:
1. The Demand Planning app provides you with both, a powerful statistical forecasting engine featuring 20+ algorithms and a Consensus Demand process, together with Demand Accuracy and Value Added reports to help the planner reach the best consensus demand forecast. https://community.anaplan.com/t5/supply-chain/Demand-Planning/ba-p/28132
2. then of course, since you mention that your demand forecast depends on your upcoming sales orders (and the demand planning model above is pretty much based on historic sales), you could use the Demand Sensing model, which uses short term signals and trends in the demand to generate a forecast: https://community.anaplan.com/t5/Supply-Chain/Demand-Sensing/ta-p/84161
3. Finally, the Supply Planning model is perfect for planning the level of stock that each location must hold based on the forecasted demand,and other parameters such Lead Times, Safety Stocks or Shelf Life. The model also takes into account MoQ or Lot Sizes to generate Production Orders. Among other functionalities, the model also display the different work centers and capacity per manufacturing location and helps out to re-balance the volume across sites. https://community.anaplan.com/t5/supply-chain/Supply-Planning/ba-p/28151
Regarding the management and tracking of the in-transit products, I have no recollection of an app in the AppHub that covers this part (it also depends on the level of detail of your specific needs), but perhaps this bit can be added in a next phase.
Please, let me know if you have any further questions.
Cheers,
Alex2
