DEMAND FORECASTING FROM MANHATTAN ASSOCIATES
Manhattan Associates' Demand Forecasting (MADF) software is a sophisticated and highly scalable system that provides the unique ability to model consumer demand patterns and inventory management considerations for millions of individual SKUs stocked in any location.
By providing this unique, granular insight into consumer demand, MADF helps wholesale distributors and retailers automatically determine replenishment and product flow decisions in a way that optimizes in-stock performance, minimizes inventory investment and frees up working capital.
MADF Provides Accurate Sales Forecasting
Manhattan's Demand Forecasting includes remarkably accurate tools for managing complex tasks like seasonal and promotional demand variability, supplier lead time variability and performance, customer service level expectations and inventory requirements.
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Ultimately, MADF enables firms to more accurately forecast demand while reducing inventory replenishment costs and operational inefficiencies. As a result, you can meet or exceed customer service goals, improve inventory turns and increase profitability and operating cash flow.
To help customers with the transition to MADF, Anseris has developed conversion programs for the purpose of transferring data from the E3/JDA systems. Using this conversion program provides customers with a significantly reduced implementation timeline and quicker return on investment.
Benefits of Using Inventory Management Software to Forecast Sales
- Assign target customer service levels by individual SKU or at the aggregate level based on corporate objectives, item sales rank, profit rank, local demographics, or other factors.
- Automatically calculate the optimal safety stock for every item in every warehouse or store by considering service level objectives, analyzing lead time variance, incorporating seasonality, and continuously updating demand forecasts - with multiple safety stock strategies to minimize lost sales.
- Track lead-time performance at the SKU level by leveraging MADF tools to predict future lead-times that take into account lead-time variance, seasonality and more.
- Determine optimal replenishment orders using supplier order frequency simulation and order building logic. These tools calculate the most economical order cycle based on account vendor constraints, truckload requirements, and other factors.
- Maximize the profit from deal buying opportunities. The system models the benefits of each deal, weighs the price advantage against the higher inventory carrying costs, and recommends the right amount and time to purchase from the supplier.
- Manage demand uncertainty with proven forecasting techniques that address all types of demand – staples, seasonal goods, promotions, new items, slow-movers and more.
- Benefit from advanced forecasting tools that incorporate trend and seasonality measurements, promotional lift, lost sales, day-of-week profiles and dynamic forecast updates over time.
- Significantly increase buyer productivity with fewer forecast exceptions, automated replenishment capabilities and an exception-based user workflow.
Measurable Business Value
MADF minimally impacts operations, seamlessly integrates with existing enterprise technologies and applications, and delivers rapid payback – often in less than one year. Actual results from MADF customers include:
- Up to 50% increase in inventory turns
- Up to 10% increase in service levels
- $10 million to $100+ million in released working capital
- Up to 400% increase in buy-side profit margin
- Up to 100% increase in buyer productivity
Balancing service level goals across multiple channels of demand can be a daunting proposition. But with Replenishment, we can easily acheive this. Managing our distribution center efforts has really turned from an art to a science with Replenishment.