Tips and information for demand plans

A great number of data records is created when details for a plan is created. The number of records that are created, and as a consequence the creation time, for a plan are both dependent on definitions such as Selections, Hierarchy code, Include zero quantity and Number of periods.

Hierarchy code

The more levels that exist on a hierarchy code, the more calculations must be performed when a plan is created and maintained.

Selections

It is only possible to make selections on levels from the hierarchy code. If, for instance, no customer is selected, all customers in the “Based on” data are used. This is particularly important when creating plans created on empty proposals, or if Include zero quantity is set to YES.

Valid for demand plan

Used in demand plan in the Item/Warehouse file must be set to YES in order to make the item available for inclusion in a demand plan.

Include zero quantities

When a plan is created based on Sales statistics, only invoiced items which are included in the selection are retrieved. If items that have not been invoiced should be included in the created plan, Include zero quantities must be set to YES. This parameter must be handled together with selections. If no selections are made on item level, and this parameter is YES, all item/warehouses valid for demand plan will be included in the plan.

Statistics

The sales statistics is used. Delivery date of invoiced line is used to decide if the line should be included in the plan.

IC forecast

Forecast quantity is used. How much of the forecast quantity that should be used is decided by the customer demand of the item. If all customers with demand for the item within the selected period should be included in the plan, the total forecast will be used for the plan.

IC demand

Customer demanded quantity is used. How much of the demanded quantity that should be used is decided by the forecasted quantity of the item. If the forecasted quantity is greater or equal to the demanded quantity, the total demand will be used for the plan.

Demand plan

Existing Manual forecast and Demand % from “based on” plan are not included in the new plan.

Specification and “Based on” periods

When details for a plan are created the quantities in the specified periods will be the same as the “based on” periods only if the difference between the specified and the base periods are multiples of a year. Otherwise, the quantity will be equally shared between all specified periods.

Responsible

Defaulted from the handler on user profile for the user who created the plan. This signature will always have access to the plan.

Include zero quantities

YES/NO indicates to the creation process to include all items and/or customers from the selection parameters even if the item or customer does not exist in “Based on” data.

In error

YES/NO indicates if errors were found during creation.

Example:
A quantity of 5,000 has been invoiced during a certain period, and in the next period a credit of 4,995 for the same item is invoiced. This scenario will end up in a total of 5 for the two periods, and a share of total for the periods cannot be calculated. If such a situation is found during creation, parameter In error is set to YES. The summary levels in error are also marked and can be located.

This parameter cannot be re-set.

When lower levels are created a Share of total is calculated to be used when changes to the different levels are distributed. Share of total is used in different places within a plan; first of all it is used between the different summary levels, secondly a share of total is calculated and used between the periods for a summary level, and finally a share of total is used on item/warehouse level to be used to distribute quantities to the periods for the item/warehouse. These values are used to update Forecast figures in DC1 Inventory Control when IC calculation is performed.

The share of total on summary level for the periods is very important. The only way to interfere with this value is to use a Season profile when changes are made in a plan. If a season profile has been used the share of total per period will be recalculated and can only be changed again by another season profile.

Note: When the total of a demand plan is changed on a certain summary level and the forecast is updated, then the share of the total forecast for that summary level and any higher levels can be automatically adjusted in proportion to the changed forecast. This is defined in Adj share of tot IDP in the IC control file.

Refresh

When this option is used existing summary levels are not changed. New quantities belonging to changes in the selections will be included in the plan.

Rebuild

All summary levels will be deleted and recalculated. Details on item/warehouse/customer levels will be used during the rebuild.

Roll plan

The first period in the plan will be deleted, and a new period will be added as the last period of the plan. The plan will be rebuilt for the old periods, and new quantities will be added to the last period from the “Based on” data.

Unlock

When a demand is created it will be locked during creation. If the creation for any reason is interrupted it is possible to use this option to unlock the plan.

Re-create

This is not an option, but a YES/NO parameter in the plan. When this is set to YES, all details will be deleted and new details will be created from the “based on” data.

Only items on active plans are retrieved for IC calculation when Calc from SOP/DP is set to YES. Items on plans of type Additional forecast and Speculation inventory are, however, ALWAYS retrieved even if this parameter is set to NO.

In this section the different types of Demand plans are described when it comes to how IC values are updated. In Demand and forecast in IC, a panel shot illustrates how summarised information on an item in IC is displayed. The reason is that it is mandatory to add these plans into the calculations. Otherwise, the forecast will be too low as the demand is not automatically updated to the sales order according to normal rules set in the order type.

Normal forecast

When values from a Normal plan are retrieved, the values in the Base forecast field are replaced.

Promotion

When values from a Promotion plan are retrieved, the values are added to the Base forecast field.

Budget

Budget plans are not included in IC calculations.

Inventory speculation

When values from an Inventory speculation plan are retrieved, the values are added to the Period forecast field.

Additional forecast

When values from an Additional forecast plan are retrieved, the values are added to the Period forecast field.

Demand and forecast in IC

Panel image

The following fields are relevant:

Demand

Displays the customer demand.

Total demand

Displays the Net demand (customer) + Production demand + Speculation inv + Additional forecast.

The following fields/values are summed up to Period forecast:

• Sales promotion (from Sales promotion)
• Speculation inv (from Demand plan)
• Additional forecast (from Demand plan)
• Dependant forecast (from Supply plan lower levels)
• Customer forecast (from inbound Delivery schedules)
• Base forecast (from IC calculation or DP or SOP or SP)

Base forecast is the value calculated by IC including everything like season profile, workdays adjust etc., or a value coming from plans. Function key Forecast adjustment history can be used to trace the origin.

Level forecast is the value calculated by IC without season profile, workdays adjust and so on (this value is used to normalise the forecast).

The customer demand and the production demand are the base values for forecast calculation according to methods in control codes within IC.

When running IC calculation the DDI file is always read and all records with a quantity in the Period demand (DDPDMD) field will be retrieved and included in the forecast calculation. Only components on manufacturing orders with parent item defined as item class 3 or 4 and items with floor stock code 3 or 4 are updating to this field when manufacturing orders are created. All other components on manufacturing orders are updating the Total demand (DDTDMD) field. The reason for this is to be able to see in the system what the total demand from manufacturing orders is, although that value is not used in the calculations.

If the same component exists in both a standard BOM as well as in a configured BOM, there will be two forecast values in the Forecast file, a calculated period forecast, based on production demand and a dependant forecast, based on a lower level calculation from the Supply plan. The value in the dependant forecast is then always added to the period forecast.

Regarding Sales promotion, the estimated and actual value is displayed on the panel and has affected the period forecast value. If more than one sales promotion exists, the Sales promotion function key is displayed on the panel through which you can see them all.

Calculation of period values at creation

When the number of “Based on” periods are not the same as the number of “Specification periods” the accumulated quantity in “based on” periods will be divided with the number of periods, and the result is used as period values in each of the specification periods.

Example:
Demand plan “EX1” is based on month 201105-201106 and should be calculated into 201110-201112. In 201105 we have 100 pcs and in 201106 we have 80 pcs. The calculation backwards will be (100 + 80)/2 = 90. The periods 201110-201112 should all have 90 as suggested value.

• For Sales statistics “Based on to” cannot be after today’s period type.
• For IC demand “Based on to” cannot be after today’s period type.
• For IC forecast “Based on to” cannot be after last period in Active forecast periods.
• For Demand plan “Based on” must be included in the “based on” plan.
• For Empty plan “Based on” periods must be blank.

When looking at forecast per item/warehouse/period, the forecast per item/whs will be the sum of the periods ONLY when using the Item/whs option from the Demand plan header, and then the Periods option. Displayed forecast per item/warehouse/period is always the values that will update IC, no matter from where the Item/whs, and then Periods options are clicked.

It is not possible to roll a plan based on an empty proposal, or a plan of type Promotion budget or Speculation inventory.

Sales forecast

The sales forecast can be changed on the different summary levels. A forecast can be changed by a percentage between -100 and 999. When a sales forecast is changed the share of total per period is used to calculate forecast per period.

When a season profile is used the share of total per period will be changed according to the profile, and after that the forecast per period will be calculated. When a season profile is used and the share of total per period is changed, a NO indicates that a season profile has been used.

Calculation rule

There are two different calculation rules: Flexible and Fixed. Calculation rule Flexible is defaulted from the Demand plan header.

Fixed means that when demand planning values, for example, are increased for one item group, values are decreased for the other item groups included in the summary level. Fixed is appropriate to use when the total forecast value must not be changed, only proportioned. Flexible means that when forecast is, for example, increased on detail level, the total will also be increased. Note: Fixed will have no effect on level 1.

Lock/unlock forecast

When a forecast is locked the period forecast is locked and displayed in the Locked FC column (toggle Shift info to display the column). The total forecast on summary level is also locked, but not displayed. If a forecast on level 2 in a 3-level hierarchy is locked it will not be possible to increase the sum of total forecast on level 3.

The sum of period forecast on the locked summary level cannot be higher than the total locked forecast. A locked forecast can be unlocked by selecting the function again.

Handling of manual FC on period level

When a manual FC is added to a period the entered value will be used to update the corresponding period on lower levels. Periods on higher levels will also be changed. This can cause confusion since the sum of Total FC on lower level is not equal to Total FC higher level.

Demand % on period

When a demand % is set on different structure legs, the percentage is added on the lowest level. The sum can never exceed 999,99 percentage.

Manual FC and demand %

When using Manual FC and Demand % on a period the values are saved on the lowest level and will be used for IC calculation. They are, however, not used when an alternative hierarchy is created. This will cause differences in the total forecast between the main plan and alternative hierarchies.

Note: It is really important to understand that the usage of Manual FC and Demand % on a structure level do update all items belonging to that structure level.

If another structure level holds the same items, and is updated with other values, both of the changes will affect the IC forecast after IC calculation.

Change of forecast

The forecast can be changed on item/warehouse level. If a season profile is attached to an item/warehouse the season profile will be used to calculate period values. The period forecast is updated even if a manual forecast exists in one or more periods, but the manual forecast value is still used when total forecast is calculated.

Change of forecast on this level can only be done when the routine is accessed from the lowest summary level.

Period values on item/warehouse

When period values are displayed, these values are always the total for the selected item/warehouse. This can cause misunderstandings since the sum of period values will not be equal to the forecast for the item/warehouse when the routine is accessed from the lowest level. The sum of period forecast will only be equal to the forecast on item/warehouse when the routine is accessed from Demand plan level.

The alternative hierarchies are used when a plan should be summarised and presented on summary levels different from the main plan.

This could be the case when, for example, a plan is set up and created in a sales perspective. When the production people are looking at the plan they want to look at it from a production perspective. In this case a demand plan hierarchy with summary levels for production can be created and used in an alternative hierarchy.

Details from the main plan will then be used when the alternative hierarchy is created. It is not possible to add or delete records in an alternative hierarchy.

Re-create

When a demand plan holding alternative hierarchies is re-created, the alternative hierarchies will be deleted and not re-created.

Roll

When a demand plan holding alternative hierarchies is rolled, the alternative hierarchies will be deleted and not re-created.

Refresh

When a demand plan holding alternative hierarchies is refreshed, the alternative will hierarchies be deleted and not re-created.