June 3, 2021 Release Notes

Forecast Trend Analytics

The Advanced Planning application has been enhanced with the addition of a new Analytics feature to support the tracking and monitoring of critical forecast and demand plan accuracy measures. The tracking of accuracy measures over time is critical in identifying trends in the accuracy of the generated demand plans, and making effective changes that result in long-term improvement in demand planning accuracy.  Prior to this enhancement, demand planning accuracy measures, that are calculated each time the forecast is calculated, were not stored and available for historical long-term trend analysis.

With this enhancement, users will see a new Analytics tab under the Forecast tab in Advanced Planning (additional metrics will be added to demand planning in the near future).  In the new Analytics tab users can review all the different monthly forecast accuracy metrics that have been calculated and stored over the past 12 months. When navigating to the Analytics the first time, there may be no data. Please click the "Run Analytics" button to populate the data.

The following forecast accuracy metrics are available in the grid on the Analytics tab: 

  • Plan Error
  • Plan Error %
  • Best Fit Error
  • Best Fit Error %
  • Plan Absolute Error
  • Plan Absolute Error %
  • Best Fit Absolute Error
  • Best Fit Absolute Error %
  • Plan MAPE; Best Fit MAPE
  • Plan WMAPE
  • Best Fit WMAPE
  • Plan Bias
  • Plan Bias %
  • Best Fit Bias
  • Best Fit Bias %

Each of these metrics are calculated using the Lag Distance defined under the Advanced Planning system settings and are updated with the "Run Analytics" process.

The user has the ability to select and configure up to four different charts to display the different forecast analytic metrics.  Up to four different charts can be added to the Analytics tab. The user can select the data that is shown on each chart and the chart type that is used to display the data.

Limit Pull Ahead of Orders for Batching

The Batching functionality has been enhanced with the ability to restrict how far into the future the Requirements Planning Logic will go to select orders to be pulled ahead for inclusion into a batch.  Previously there was no limit as to how far into the future the Requirements Planning Logic will go to pull ahead an order to fill a batch.  The previous logic could in some cases result in orders being pulled ahead from too far into the future resulting in excess inventory being carried for a period of time. This enhancement eliminates the possibility of the Requirements Planning Logic pulling ahead a order that is too far in the future to complete a batch. A new Pull Ahead Limit has been added to the Planning Templates for batches to enable the user to specify the maximum number of periods (in days/weeks/months) the Requirements Planning Logic will look to pull ahead orders to complete the batch.

Provide Ability to View Open Orders and Shipments Separately in the Demand Plan

The Demand Plan tab in Advanced Planning has been enhanced to enable the user to view the Open Orders and Shipments separately. Previously the values for Open Orders and Shipments were combined together in the Actual row of the current and future buckets.  With this enhancement users will have the ability to add additional rows to the Demand Plan to show the Open Orders and Shipments in each period to more easily identify and track Open Orders in prior periods.

As a reminder, the Actual Orders lines in the past DO NOT include any open past due open orders - only shipments. Open orders are included in the current and future buckets of the Actual Orders line only.

To avoid confusion, we recommend invoking either the Shipments and Open Orders lines OR Actual Orders lines, We do not recommend including all three lines in the view.

0 Comments

Add your comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.