Key benefits:
- Optimized inventory levels.
- Increased sales.
- Reduced costs due to order consolidation.
- Simplified ordering process.
- Workflow approvals.
Demand planning – key Features
Inventory of many locations
Demand planning. NetSuite allows you to easily define multiple inventory locations with real-time visibility. Locations can be organized hierarchically, and a country can be defined for global companies. During the planning process, the system can be configured to automatically create transfer orders between locations when needed.
Item configuration
One of the most critical areas of the planning process is to define parameters that affect each element. The settings apply to the entire item unless they are entered in a list of sub-locations. This defines the element as available for demand planning, establishes an alternative source element (if you are trying to plan a new element without sales history), and determines which distribution network and category it can belong to.
The sub-location list has many additional planning parameters that affect how you assess demand or generate planned orders.
This functionality includes:
- Safety stock,
- The method of determining the lot size,
- Fixed batch size,
- Delivery planning periods,
- Delivery Type,
- Source of demand,
- Days of consumption, forward and backward,
- Time limits of demand and planning,
- Change the schedule of entry / exit days.
Demand planning process
Demand can be assessed and presented in many different ways using the demand planning process. The menu is structured in a way that shows the process of calculating demand, reviewing demand plans and editing where required, generating delivery plans, viewing and editing them, and finally generating planned purchase orders, shift orders and production orders as needed. In addition, the system can be configured to generate real transactions and skip scheduled orders when needed.
Available planning methods
- Linear Regression. Uses previous requirements to design future inventory based on the regular square’s regression method.
- Moving average. Allows to calculate the total average stock level required and then forecast future stock levels using this overall average.
- Seasonal average. Uses previous demand to examine the seasonal inventory flow trend and then forecasts a similar seasonal trend for future inventory levels.
- Sales Forecast. When using NetSuite for sales operations, this option uses forecast sales data (such as opportunities, estimates, etc.) to forecast inventory demand.
Demand planning – Delivery plans
Delivery plans can be generated using position settings from demand plans with one click, which reduces time-consuming manual processes. Depending on some parameters and approval workflows, the system will generate planned, running or released orders.
Message planning
NetSuite can also generate planning related messages to help the user make the right decisions and optimize inventory levels where appropriate.
Gross demand inquiry
The gross demand inquiry provides an overview of the progressive supply and demand cycle, listing the required quantities and quantities delivered at each transaction date mentioned. Each transaction and date are listed along with the available or less available number of transactions, as well as the resulting total quantity available for the item.
Notifications
The result of the planning process simplifies the process of creating purchase, shift, and production orders for the user.
There are many forms of notifications in NetSuite:
- Reminders,
- Email notifications
- Saved searches
- Scheduled reports.
Allocation exception management
To respond to shortages of deliveries and VIP customers, you can review all supply sources and order assignments to ensure that high priority sales orders are processed on time. To minimize the impact on all orders, the system provides intelligent resource reallocation recommendations, designed to retrieve them from multiple unallocated orders and complete priority orders first.
Reallocation recommendations generated by the system reduce the time for searching, browsing, and reallocating. After accepting the recommendation, the system automatically re-adjusts inventory to the orders affected by the problem.
However, if the recommendations generated are not appropriate, you can generate a new set of allocation recommendations. Then you can review the reallocation scenarios until you define the solution. After confirming the allocation, the system returns to the order.
