SmartsEngine for Demand Planning

Summary Overview

SmartsEngine Demand Planning (SE DP) is a Consummate Demand Planning Solution and Demand Planning Center of Excellence Platform.

A highly configurable, adaptable, scalable, and process-driven solution, SE DP meets a customer wherever it is in terms of expertise, process maturity, and IT environment and enables continuous improvement and quick adaptation to change.

SE DP can be understood as a base layer of standard functionality wrapped in a second layer of vision-capture and decision-making functionality wrapped in learning organization and process development functionality.

Level I: Standard Demand Planning Functionality
Level II: Vision-Capture and Decision-Making Functionality
Level III: Learning Organization and Process Development Functionality

Consummate Demand Planning Solution and Center of Excellence Platform

Executing Comprehensive Demand Planning Activity with Great Efficiency within a Business IQ Development Platform.

SmartsEngine for Demand Planning is not an extension of demand planning functionality. It is very comprehensive demand planning functionality that exists within and is applied within a business IQ development platform. SmartsEngine houses comprehensive planning modules (forecasting, demand, inventory, supply chain, resource, IBP, financial) and an advanced KPI module as base layer functionality, all of which it transforms within its overarching methodology for business IQ development.

If implemented for demand planning, as the enterprise conducts its demand planning processes, SmartsEngine develops the enterprise's business IQ within the scope of demand planning.

definition,
definition,
definition,
standardization,
adherence,
training,
certification,
evolution,
efficiency,
excellence.

process, practices, principles from all relevant sources,
all demand planning relevant data from any source,
four statistical engines, including Python,
outstanding formal incorporation of events and assumptions,
opportunities, issues, options, evaluations, decisions, alternatives,
comprehensive quality control for all inputs
RCA for exceptions and evidence-based evolution of processes,
incorporation of new ideas, research, quantitative tools, analytics.

Sets the Stage for Full SmartsEngine Deployment and its Benefits

The ultimate goal is not to develop business IQ within the scope of demand planning and execute a consummate demand planning process.

The ultimate goal is to out-navigate and out-evolve the competition in full.

Setting up SmartsEngine for demand planning sets the stage for this. SmartsEngine is a new category of platform and demand planning provides an excellent context for developing expertise with it before moving on to general deployment across the organization.

LEVEL I: Standard Demand Planning Functionality

Configuration to Customer

Feature	Function	Benefit
Calendar	Defines fiscal years and periods, sales and work days	Synchronizes planning with finance and budgeting
Currency	Provides currency codes and conversion rates	Supports integrated international financial planning
Hierarchies	Enables creation and maintenance multiple, consistent hierarchies of forecasting and planning items	Coordinates and captures vision, ideas, analysis, understanding, collaboration, planning, decision-making, and learning across functions, areas of expertise, management levels, and levels of aggregation/summary.
Prioritization	Maintenance of statistics and statuses for priority sorting	Efficiency and productivity of time using valid triage lists
System Controls	Configures system to customer	System fitted / taylored / applied to customer’s needs
Systems Integration	Highly developed systems integration of one or more ERP systems and sets of corporate data sources	Customer’s data from myriad sources programmatically imported and exported on schedule
User Setup	Security, accessibility, configuration by user	User’s work environment fully configured by need
User-defined Batch Jobs	Maintenace of routine IT task sequences	Productivity and efficiency

Item Data

Feature	Function	Benefit
12 item attributes	Import and/or maintenance of extensive item attribute data. This fields can contain whatever data a customer wants. Their default names are company, sbu, family, sub-family, class, product type, market, sub-market, regjion, district, territory, channel.	Comprehensive capability to create views, select, sort, summarize, report, prioritize, handle items of any detail and aggregation in any way a customer wants, operate the system however a customer needs. Feature 1 as;ldkas asd;lfkasdf asdf;lka sdf Feature 2 Feature 3
Active / inactive	Indicates active / inactive status	Enables customer to only view active items but still weave in the data from inactive items as that data pertains to the future — no lost history.
Average Actual Cost	Maintenance and usage of average actual cost	Projected costing by average actual cost
Average Selling Price	Automatic calculation of average selling price	Revenue computation and projection by average selling price
Cube	Import/maintenance of cube (physical volume) of items	Computation of volume requirements
Currency	Currency of item	Integrated international financial calculations and planning
Cust Count	Counting of the number of customers for an item	Helps determine correct forecasting and planning methods and policies for items
Eff / Obs	Import / maintenance of effectivity and obsolete dates	Supports product and item lifecyle management
Lead Times	Maintenance of three planning lead times – firm, trading, engineering	Enables planning and decision-making to operate with adequate time and at the right time
Life Cycle	Maintenance of item lifecyle status	Supports product and item lifecyle management and prioritization
List Price	Import and maintenance of list price	Ready awareness of discounts and margins
Order Cost	Import and maintenance of order cost	Supports EOQ calculation
Pack Size	Import and maintenace of pack size	Enables conversion between package and eaches
Holding Cost	Import and maintenance of annual holding cost / year	Supports EOQ calculation
Sales Volume	Categorization code of items by high, medium, low, none	Supports policy making and prioritization
Setup Cost	Setup cost per order, generally including shipping and handling	Supports EOQ calculation
Standard Cost	Import and maintenance of standard cost	Supports cost calculations
Strat Adv	Import and maintenance of strategic advantage of item	Supports analysis of plans by strategic advantage
Variability	Calculation and codification of items by degree of variability	Supports policy making and prioritization
Weight	Item weight	Supports conversion of projects to weights

Demand Planning

Feature	Function	Benefit
Auxillary view: actuals v forecast / plan	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing actuals against a chosen forecast or plan as of a selected period in the past.	Shows per period and PTD how actuals played out against a plan.
Auxillary view: annual, previous, new auxillary view	Pops up a configurable chart and grid comparing an annual plan, the prior period plan, and the current plan with how the current plan compares to previous.	Informs user how much change has taken place since the beginning of the year and since last period.
Auxillary view: ave selling price ave actual cost	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing how average selling price and average actual cost are trending.	Quickly shows how profits are trending.
Auxillary view: change analysis	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing average demand, average forecast, and % forecast change period to period	Succinctly communicates demand and forecast stability.
Auxillary view: confidence interval	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing the current statistical forecast with its 95% confidence interval.	Communicates how well the statistical forecast fits the data.
Auxillary view: corrleation matrix	Pops up a correlation matrix between independent variables and a dependent variable.	Show what data are likely explanatory.
Auxillary view: demand distribution	Pops up a configurable histogram and its data grid	Shows demand variability.
Auxillary view: fitting errors	Pops up a configurable chart and grid comparing demand history, fitted forecast numbers, and the fitting errors per period.	Communicates quality of current statistical forecast against past data.
Auxillary view: forecast comparison	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing various forecasts and how they compare in terms of FVA	Tool for chosing which forecast to favor.
Auxillary view: forecast differences	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing two forecasts and how they compare per period, PTD, % diff, and % diff PTD	Helps decide where to place efforts to get best FVA.
Auxillary view: forecast error	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing all forecast errors over a historical window — statistical, bottom-up, top-down, consensus.	Helps decide where to place efforts to get best FVA.
Auxillary view: forecast error distribution	Pops up a configurable histograms and grids showing all distribution of forecast errors over a historical window — statistical, bottom-up, top-down, consensus.	Helps decide where to place efforts to get best FVA.
Auxillary view: holdout	Pops up a configurable chart and grid showing current method for statistical forecast would have played out over a holdout window.	Helps evaluate different statistical forecasting methods interactively.
Auxillary view: KPI	Pops up user-defined KPI viewer	Efficient tracking of demand planning performance according to user’s chosen metrics.
Auxillary view: performance to budget	Pops up a chart and grid showing budget, actuals/forecast, period and PTD differences, period and PTD % differences	Quick report of projected under and over-performance to budget for the fiscal year.
Auxillary view: revenue, cost, margin	Pops up a configurable chart and grid of revenue, cost, and margin across a historical and future time window.	Quick evaluation of business health of an item
Auxillary view: top X/X% by Market / Channel / Category	Pops up a configurable chart and grid of top items by market, channel, category	Quick business picture of key items in different sectors
Auxillary view: Waterfall	Pops up a configurable, comprehensive waterfall chart and grid	Quick tool for seeing planning change over time and performance multiple periods ahead
Auxillary view: Year over Year	Pops up a configurable chart and grid of how demand has changed year over and is expected to change going forward	Quick insight into year-to-year change
Batch job automation	Automatic scheduling of any batch job or grouping of batch jobs	Huge productivity feature
Bottom-up reps forecasting	Enables sales forecasts to be developed and managed bottom-up from the sales force.	Incorporation and quality control of customer-facing data
Budget	Incorporation of Budgets	Ongoing tracking against the budget
Cost history	Capture of cost history	Evaluation of cost projections against actuals
CRM feed	Integration of forecast data from CRM systems	Incorporation of CRM data and measurement of its contribution
Events and assumptions	Massive utility for efficient and comprehensive incorporation of events, goals, ideas, and assumptions	Comprehensive inclusion of thinking across functions
Forecasting in revenue with conversion to volume	Enables stating forecasts in revenue and immediate conversion to volume	Fluid incorporation of expectations from personnel who think in terms of revenue first
Independent variable forecasting	Complete provision for forecasting independent variables	Incorporation of all causal information
Linkages: comparison items	Linkage of items for comparison to any item	Easy incorporation of comparable items to decision-making
Linkages: market demand item	Linkage of market demand to market and sub-market items	Incorporation of total market size / total market potential to decision-making
Linkages: substitution	Linkage of product substitutes	Ready available of data on substitutes for planning
Linkages: supersession	Linkage of superseded items to current items	Automatic incorporation of data from superseded items
Manager fields (6)	Maintenance by item of manager, s&op manager, planner, sales manager, sales rep, and marketing manager	Efficient assignment of responsibility and ability to report by manager
Market demand forecasting	Complete provision for forecasting total market and sub-market demand	Creation of incorporation of the upper-bound of what’s possible in markets
Narratives	Creation and maintenance of historical and override events by item	Full history for each item
New product forecasting	Methods for managing new product forecasts	Incorporation and tracking of new product market expectations
Order quantity calculation	Multiple methods for calculating order quantity	Automatic replenishment calculation according to planner’s best practices
Overrides	Extensive functionality for overriding forecasts	Incorporation of user’s input as they want to apply it
Policies (efficient collaboration)	Policies create collaborative flows of forecast data from one forecast area to another, across functions and up and down hierarchies	Enables system to work with great productivity and efficiency
Price forecast	Time series for price forecast	Enables financial forecasting
Prioritization: abc	ABC automatic calculations based on system control settings	Enables focus on what’s most important
Prioritization: pareto positions	Calculates pareto positions for volumne, revenue, cost, and margin	Enables focus on what’s most important
Prioritization: size of exception	Automatic calculation of tracking statistics and flagging of exceptions	Enables focus on what’s most important
Resource linkages	Link item quantities to resources, BOMs, vendors, plants, operational planning	Enables rough cut loads on capacities
Safety stock calculation	Calculation of safety stock by many methods	Optimizes inventory levels
Saving forecasts and plans	Saving of all forecasts every period	Enables tracking metrics to be calculated over planning horizons
Statistical forecasting	6 automatic best-fit methods; 3 statistical forecasting engines (including Python), group seasonality, data limiting, data conditioning, outlier adjustment	Extrapolates the past into the future using best methods
Top-down marketing forecasting	Capture of marketing plans top-down	Incorporates marketing decisions int overall planning
Tracking and exception flagging	Routine calculations of accuracy, bias, change, and performance to plan statistics	Exception flagging and triage sorting
Ui configuration to user	Comprehensive set of user interface settings — views, tabs, columns, chart and grid settings, etc.	Users create their own work environments for productivity and efficiency
Unit of measure conversion	Converts various units to other units	Easy understanding of planning numbers in terms of familiar units

Reporting

Feature	Function	Benefit
Actuals v Forecast / Plan	Reports actuals against forecast or plan. Any forecast or plan and any units.	Visibility on how actuals are playing out against forecasts and plans.
Actuals v Forecast / Plan Drilldown	Drilldown reporting of actuals against forecast or plan. Any forecast or plan and any units.	Drilldown visibility on how actuals are playing out against forecasts and plans.
Actuals/Forecast with Trend Line Drilldown	Drilldown reporting of actuals and forecasts or plans with a trend line of history through the future.	Drilldown visibility of any trend.
Annual, Previous, New	Reporting of annual plan, the prior period plan, and the current plan with how the current plan compares to previous.	Informs user how much change has taken place since the beginning of the year and since last period.
Average Selling Price	Reporting of how average selling price and average actual cost are trending.	Visibility on how profits are trending.
Change Analysis	Reporting showing average demand, average forecast, and % forecast change period to period	Visibility on demand and forecast stability.
Confidence Interval	Reporting of current statistical forecast with its 95% confidence interval.	Visibility on how well the statistical forecast fits the data.
Events and Assumptions, including Funnel / Sales Pipeline	Reporting of events and assumptions of all sorts, including sales funnel & pipeline events	Visibility of non time series data
Financial: Configurable	Reporting of financials (units, revenus, cost, margin), historical and projected.	Visibility on fianancials in many configurations.
Financial: Performance to Budget	Reporting of performance to budget, YTD + rest of fiscal year	Visibility on how actuals are playing out against annual plans.
Financial: Performance to Budget Drilldown	Drilldown reporting of performance to budget, YTD + rest of fiscal year	Drildown visibility on how actuals are playing out against annual plans.
Financial: Revenue, Cost, Margin Drilldown	Drilldown report of revenue, cost, and %margin across a time window of past to future periods	Drilldown visibility of key financials across any time window
Forecast Accuracy: Configurable	Fully configurable reporting on forecasts using any metrics, any weighting, any summarization	Visibility on forecast quality using any metrics and approach
Forecast Accuracy Comparison	Reporting of various forecasts and how they compare in terms of FVA	Visibility on what forecasts are most accurate / valuable / contributing to value
Forecast Accuracy Contribution	Reporting of various forecasts and how they compare in terms of FVA	Reporting of various forecasts and how they compare in terms of FVA
Forecast Accuracy Drilldown	Drilldown reporting on forecasts using any metrics, any weighting, any summarization	Drilldown visibility on forecasts using any metrics, weighting, approach
Forecast Difference	Reporting of two forecasts and how they compare per period, PTD, % diff, and % diff PTD	Visibility of comparison between any two forecasts
Item Data	Reporting of ad-hoc item data	Visibility of what item data is in the system; output of item data to import into other systems
KPI	Reporting of user-defined KPI collection	Visibility of planning performance according to user’s chosen metrics.
Linkage	Reporting of linkages being maintained for items	Visibility of linkages in the system being maintained for items
Pareto	Pareto reporting of selected items by any pareto criteria	Visibility of items, top to bottom according to pareto criteria
Sales, Shipments, Forecast Drilldown	Drilldown reporting of sales, shipsments, and forecast across any time horizon	Drilldown visibility of sales, shipments, and forecast across any time horizon
Waterfall	Reporting of waterfall data for any selection of items, sorted, and subtotaled using any data	Visibility of waterfall data for any selection of items, sorted, and subtotaled using any data
Year Over Year Comparison	Reporting of how demand has changed year over and is expected to change going forward	Visibility of how demand has changed year over and is expected to change going forward

LEVEL 2: Vision-Capture and Decision-Making Functionaltiy

Features / Functions / Benefits

Feature	Function	Benefit
Very advanced evants and assumptions management	Comprehensively captures events, ideas, goals, assumptions, sales events, and project plans.	Captures and applies all information in decision-making
Very advanced tracking and exception flagging	Comprehensive quality control mechanism for events and assumptions management.	Improves capture of events and think systematically
Opportunity and issue manager	Comprhensive deciion-making functionality	Optimized decision-making at each decision point
x	What-if simulation	Optimized decision-making at each decision point
x	Development of demand Planning options	Optimized decision-making at each decision point
x	evaluation of Optional Scenarios	Optimized decision-making at each decision point
x	x	Knowing that demand plans are made in consideration of all options

Feature	Function	Benefit
Processs Governor	Instantiates, coordinates, and governs the whole process	opt demand plans / (considering @ options + process evolution)
Process Helm	Provides individualized cockpits to users	progress to se@
Evolve	Identify exceptions	superforecasting
	Prioritize exceptions	evolution
	Process exceptions	new @
	Build on successes
	Learn from mistakes
	Evolve process

SmartsEngine for Demand Planning

Summary Overview

Consummate Demand Planning Solution and Center of Excellence Platform

Executing Comprehensive Demand Planning Activity with Great Efficiency within a Business IQ Development Platform.

SmartsEngine can Meet and Engage as a Consummate Platform for Demand Planning

Many Differentiators / Advantages

Sets the Stage for Full SmartsEngine Deployment and its Benefits

LEVEL I: Standard Demand Planning Functionality

Configuration to Customer

Item Data

Demand Planning

Reporting

LEVEL 2: Vision-Capture and Decision-Making Functionaltiy

Features / Functions / Benefits

LEVEL 3: Learning Organization and Process Development Functionality

Features / Functions / Benefits

Features / Functions / Benefits

Navigating and Evolving as an Ever-Smarter Competitor is Within Your Reach