Inventory Planning Blog

Inventory Optimization – It’s The Science That Counts

Posted on Tue, Feb 08,2022@10:46 AM

                                               Feb 2022 Blog

When it comes to inventory forecasting and planning,COVID-19 is presenting a serious challenge. Cases range from plummeting sales to unprecedented peak sales and to longer lead times, to unavailable stock.

Further, the general consensus at the moment, is that the immediate impact as described above will be followed by either an upturn or return to more normalized levels and a gradual return to available stock. Then, there is the unknown question of if the virus will return in the fall/winter and what kind of impact will be felt then. If it becomes an endemic virus, meaning its here to stay like the flu, what then?

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Tags: inventory optimization

YOUR INVENTORY PLANNING or Is It INVENTORY GUESSING?

Posted on Tue, Nov 02,2021@09:00 AM

Signs of a slowly improving global economy are starting to become apparent but far from robust. Consumers have a pent-up need to spend the cash they have amassed. But, production in the Far East is trying to catch up to this demand. Then, there is the massive shipping backlog and serious shortage of truck drivers. Experts suggest these adverse conditions could last well into late next year and possible the following year as well.

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization

Inventory Planning Productivity a Critical Goal to Survive

Posted on Tue, Sep 07,2021@09:41 AM

Unique and unforeseen events are forcing every business manager to better analyze and utilize their resources. This includes capital, staff, facilities, vendors and more. Especially difficult as we emerge from the COVID lockdown is personnel. If you can’t add staff or find qualified people to fill open positions, you need to increase your existing productivity to compensate. And you need to do it fast. Want to do more inventory planning with the resources you have? Or maybe you need to move a person to another critical department but that would mean not being able to plan your entire inventory.

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Tags: cloud, inventory optimization, SaaS

Aftermarket Service Parts Planning Concepts Pt. 1

Posted on Tue, Oct 06,2020@06:45 AM

stamp-114438_1920Aftermarket service or spare parts inventory management is a prime candidate for advanced inventory planning software. With many diverse parts to manage and a lack of power tools, most companies with parts inventories have too many of the wrong parts. The result is unnecessary inventory expense, while still suffering service-limiting stock-outs.

Manual efforts to improve this situation fail, because of the time-intensive nature of the problem. A large number of parts, each with special considerations, quickly bog down someone trying to improve the parts purchases.

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Tags: inventory optimization, SPARE PARTS INVENTORY PLANNING

Why Inventory Optimization Algorithms Are Important

Posted on Tue, Jul 07,2020@08:15 AM

Complexity around the world due to social, medical and confrontational disruption seems to be the new norm. Serious viral infections have been on the rise for many years and will be with us forever. Now, is the time to advance the state of your inventory planning by incorporating solutions based on scientific inventory optimization algorithms.

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Tags: inventory optimization

Inventory Planning in Global Crisis with Advanced Inventory Planning

Posted on Fri, Apr 10,2020@12:48 PM

COVID-19 is presenting a challenge we have never experienced before. Supply chains across the globe have been upended. Companies are struggling to make sense of their inventory demand forecasting and stock replenishment planning.  Cases range from plummeting sales to unprecedented peak sales and to longer lead times, to unavailable stock. This may become the new normal. 

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Tags: inventory optimization, Inventory Planning Solutions, supply chain planning

Why are Inventory Optimization Algorithms Important?

Posted on Tue, Oct 08,2019@11:26 AM

There are a lot of inventory planning solutions from all around the world. Many are designed for large enterprise companies. They cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are highly complex. Some are so complex a math or science degree is required just to operate the system. Others, at the low end, may only be point solutions for forecasting, as an example, or offer individual modules you need to buy separately. Several of these solutions include a forecasting capability either their own platform or from an included third-party provider. Most have you select the appropriate forecast method and require you to manually set replenishment levels, like min & max. How is this any better than using a spreadsheet?

How many offer real inventory optimization and why is this important? There are many reasons why inventory optimization is critical for conducting business in today’s ever challenging economic and consumer-oriented climate. An advanced supply chain planning system should also rationalize the inventory levels and investment in light of the expected demand and other variable conditions.

First, what is the cost of carrying, holding and managing an inventory?  The costs for most items are steadily increasing, real estate costs and taxes are up and shipping costs are through the roof. Inventory optimization provides a great balanced inventory to meet expected demand, while reducing costs and better controlling spend for additional stock purchases. Planning in a timelier manner reduces the need for expediting orders in from vendors, which in-turn reduces the need for expediting shipments to customers.

Second, inventory optimization dramatically improves the financial performance of an inventory because buying and stocking are more in-line with expected customer demand. It helps to reduce and almost eliminate the future build-up of excess inventory and dead stock.

Third, there are too many known and unknown variables that can affect your inventory and subsequent customer service levels to manage properly. Just forecasting and planning your inventory leaves you wide-open to problems in meeting both your financial goals and customer expectations.

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Tags: inventory optimization

Valogix customers tell their inventory planning success stories Part 2

Posted on Tue, Oct 09,2018@01:18 PM

Herramientas Poderosas (HP)

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Tags: SAP Business One, inventory optimization, Spreadsheets, inventory management

Key to Successfully Using Advanced Inventory Planning Solutions

Posted on Tue, Nov 19,2013@10:00 AM

Ease of Use is the Key to Successfully Using Advanced Inventory Planning Solutions

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization, Valogix, Spreadsheets

Inventory Optimization Provides Significant Advantages

Posted on Tue, Oct 08,2013@10:00 AM

There are a lot of inventory planning solutions available from all types of companies around the world. Many are designed for large enterprise companies as they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are highly complex. Some so complex a math or science degree is required just to operate the system. Others at the low end may be just point solutions for just forecasting, as an example, or offer individual modules you need to buy separately.

Most of these solutions include a forecasting capability either their own or from an included third-party provider. They usually also offer min and max levels, safety stock and replenishment calculations. Most require you to manually set replenishment levels and have you select the appropriate forecast method.

But how many offer real inventory optimization and why is this important? There are many reasons why inventory optimization is critical for conducting business in today’s ever challenging economic climate.

First of all is the cost of carrying, holding and managing an inventory. The costs for most items are steadily increasing, real estate costs and taxes are up and shipping costs are through the roof. Inventory optimization provides a great balanced inventory to meet expected demand, while reducing costs and better controlling spend for additional stock purchases. Planning in a timelier manner reduces the need for expediting orders in from vendors, which in-turn reduces the need for expediting shipments to customers.

Secondly, optimization dramatically improves the financial performance of an inventory because buying and stocking are more in-line with expected customer demand. It helps to reduce and almost eliminate the future build-up of excess inventory and dead stock.

Third, there are too many known and unknown variables that can affect your inventory and subsequent customer service levels to manage properly. Just forecasting and planning your inventory leaves you wide-open to problems in meeting both your financial goals and customer expectations. Trying to plan with spreadsheets is even a worse situation that will eventually lead you to higher costs and lower service producing a higher level of customer dissatisfaction and lost business.

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization, advanced inventory planning solutions, Inventory Planning Solutions

Investing in Advanced Inventory Planning Software

Posted on Tue, Sep 24,2013@10:00 AM

Investing in smart solutions that improve your inventory planning is an important business decision and necessary in today’s global and troubled economy. Sometimes the concept of spending money to save money is very hard to accept. There are no guarantees the investment will pay off, so there is some level of risk involved. But, is it any riskier to do nothing? To maintain the status quo?

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization, Demand Planning, web based inventory planning

Enhancing the MRP Process and Inventory Planning

Posted on Tue, Sep 10,2013@11:00 AM

The basic purpose of Material Requirements Planning (MRP) is determining how much of which products needs to be either manufactured or purchased based on it being a component or ingredient of another item. MRP also determines when the product is required. Every item can have either Independent Demand or Dependent Demand.

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization, Demand Planning, MRP

Advanced Inventory Solutions Complement ERP Systems

Posted on Tue, Aug 27,2013@12:01 PM

Advanced inventory planning solutions are known as decision support software. This means they are smart systems that forecast and plan optimal inventory requirements. They are superior to commonly used types of software; standard inventory transaction software and spreadsheets. Many of these solutions are both strategic and tactical tools. They cover long range inventory budget planning down to daily replenishment and problem solving.
 
Comparison to Spreadsheets
 
Spreadsheets are manual, time consuming. They do not provide intelligent part mix management and part specific forecasts. In addition, spreadsheets are extremely difficult to update and maintain current data effectively, plus they normally cannot be interfaced directly with enterprise and customer relationship software. Conducting quality assurance on the calculations and models is also difficult and based on a study by a leading international consulting firms over 90% of spreadsheets they audited contained significant errors. These errors led to the loss of millions of dollars.
 
Comparison with Standard Inventory Management other or Control Systems
 
Almost every inventory solution is a transaction (accounting) type system. This means they keep track of the physical movement of items on and off the shelf. These are “dumb” systems, meaning they are static and cannot intelligently determine what to stock, project demand, or create a complete replenishment plan. These systems are based on 40 year old plus, methods using ABC as the only part classification technique. They do not have leading-edge Exception Management capabilities which provide "alerts" to the User for unusually occurrences.
 
What Inventory Management Software can do:
 
• keep basic part information like: part number, description, cost, dimensions, etc.
• track parts movement: received, on order, on shelf, removed from the shelf, etc.
• provide a basic reorder point and min/max settings
• record the different bin locations where parts are stored
• provide an order for new parts needed, using standard reorder point, min/max, and safety stock
 
What Inventory Management Software cannot do:
 
• provide a system generated forecast or offer multiple advanced forecasting methods
• manage repair parts and their repair cycle (reverse logistics)
• provide an optimal inventory mix to improve service level while reducing cost
• offer multiple stocking and reordering policies
• manage parts specifically required for PM (preventative maintenance) schedules
• help to reduce overstock and excess part inventory
• manage by exception and provide key user alerts.
 
What Advanced Inventory Planning Solutions CAN DO:
 
• forecast parts demand with multiple models appropriate for different demand patterns
• plan for unlimited part and location combinations (scalable)
• provide advanced calculations for calculating shelf stock and reorder points
• calculate the optimal mix based on dynamic demand changes
• provide time phased plans and order for both new and repair items
• manage by exception and provide alerts to the planner
• identify overstock and excess inventory and provide redeployment strategies
• plan parts for preventative maintenance schedules
• multi-echelon or theatre planning - can plan at every stocking level both real and virtual
      (from master warehouse to stock kept with a field or service engineer)
• plan part life cycle, substitutes and supercedes, and end-of-life parts
 
Combining Transaction Systems + Advanced Planning Solutions
 
Advanced planning solutions do not replace the existing transaction systems. Instead, they are designed to complement and improve existing software. The best of all worlds is to add an advanced planning solution to an existing transaction system. This provides a more complete, robust system that dynamically plans based on what is happening now and projected for the future. Download our free whitepaper to find out more!

DMRP Smooth Flow Whitepaper
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Tags: Inventory Planning, cloud, inventory optimization, web based inventory software, cloud computing, Demand Planning, replenishment planning, Spreadsheets

Inventory Planning Feast or Famine

Posted on Mon, May 13,2013@10:00 AM

The vast majority of companies that own an inventory invariably use spreadsheets to control, manage and report. The types of companies vary from manufacturing, to wholesale distribution, to retail, to aftermarket services, to maintenance and repair operations. And this is true geographically and for companies from the very small to the largest. So why the fascination with spreadsheets?

I most cases, companies already own the software as part of a suite or as already installed on the computer they purchased. They are relatively low cost and have an abundance of features that make them attractive. It is also a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”. Meaning, people are unaware of the availability of easy to use affordable, automated inventory planning software.

The dangers inherent in spreadsheets are:
Lack of Control
Errors from:

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Tags: Inventory Planning, cloud, inventory optimization, SaaS, Valogix, Spreadsheets

Cloud Inventory Planning Has Many Advantages

Posted on Mon, May 06,2013@10:00 AM

How does optimizing your inventory planning impact your savings?

Advanced inventory planning and optimization software in the cloud not only automates the entire planning process, it dramatically increases the positive cash flow of a company. By smartly reducing inventory investment, reducing stockouts, decreasing expedited shipping costs, and reducing planning time all contribute to more available cash. Add to that increased sales and productivity and the gains will also lead to an improved competitive advantage.

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Tags: Inventory Planning, inventory optimization, SaaS, in the Cloud, Valogix