“Improving from 1.5 to 4 or 5 turns was pretty easy, but once you get to 6 further improvement is much more difficult while maintaining the same service level. It requires even more collaboration,” Greg Langevin, Senior Manager of Inventory Planning Ricoh

Optimize inventory at all locations and improve customer service?

(It’s counterintuitive but it’s what we do.)

We hear it time and time again from prospective clients: “How can it be that our inventory is higher than ever before, and yet our best customers are screaming for product?”

No business starts with the goal of having all the wrong product in all the wrong places, but a shocking number of companies face that dilemma – due to some combination of murky supply chain visibility, reliance on inflexible systems (or ignorance of reliable systems), flawed data and sloppy procedures.

As we’ve demonstrated time and time again, it is possible to have the right product in the right place at the right time. In fact, with the complete supply chain visibility and the uniquely flexible planning strategies provided by our DS Requirements Planning, it’s actually fairly simple.

• Link demand for finished goods to the required raw materials or component parts. This will allow for changes in mixtures or yields and support phasing in of new components.
• Establish order parameters such as the Minimum Order Quantity and Lead Time for each product in each location. Set alerts for replenishment actions - in the form of Planned Orders - to meet your Inventory Objectives.
• Time-phased safety stock and safety time allow you to temporarily reduce or build inventory or to vary customer service levels throughout the year.
• Action messages allow you to manage by exception. You determine which items require immediate attention.
• DS RP lets you apply different inventory strategies to individual distribution centers or customer locations. DS RP keeps your planning fresh by responding to continual updates of such critical information as your current inventory balances, your customer orders and all scheduled receipts, i.e. in-transit quantities.
• And, unlike many standard replenishment or ERP systems that use simple auto-reorder functionality, Demand Solutions Replenishment Planning (DS RP) automatically follows forecasts and develops demand patterns accordingly.

An effective planning process requires a high degree of discipline – in your data standards, in your planning and execution strategies and in your daily, weekly and monthly procedures.

With our uniquely flexible DS Requirements Planning tool as the backbone of a disciplined planning process, we can help you quickly bring your inventory in balance to help meet the needs of even your most demanding customers. (Our global Demand Solutions team can help you develop a reliable & repeatable process as well as provide you with dependable software tools).

Manage what matters

Some items are more profitable than others. Some customers are frankly more important than others. Demand Solutions enables you to automatically assign ABC Codes to objectively quantify the relative importance of each item and each customer. Inventory strategies can then be managed (and selectively tweaked) by ABC Code.

Don't let constraints restrict your performance

Most planning systems are rigid and inflexible. The real world is anything but.

DS RP takes constraints such as production and shipping capacities, seasonality, material shortages and alloca­tions, manpower, warehouse space, etc. into consideration in its planning calculations.

DS RP’s Order Consolidation feature lets you proactively manage production capacity constraints in units, production hours or any other unit of measure. This same feature can be used to build container-load or truck-load shipments in your choice of weight, cube, cost or any user-defined equivalent unit of measure.

I can see for miles and miles

DS RP provides a panoramic view of even the most complex supply chains. As your planning data and planning strategies change and ripple throughout your supply chain, you can quickly evaluate and execute new plans of action.

A number of companies use DS RP as a multi-purpose tool – applying the system’s planning logic to their finished goods and raw materials planning as well as to their distribution plans.

DS RP is a quick-response planning and scheduling tool that helps you achieve your company’s financial objectives by translating your forecasts and inventory strategies into a dynamic time-phased replenishment program.

Try before you buy - Simulate your plans with Demand Solutions

What if …

…  we reduce the Safety Time targets on our A & B items?
…  we increase minimum order quantities on all items shipped to the West Coast?
…  we consolidate three distribution centers into two?
…  our key supplier shuts down for Chinese New Year?
…  we accept that 37% forecast increase next month?

DS RP provides informed responses to your dynamic challenges by enabling you to simulate a variety of different planning scenarios before you commit to a plan. And the system is fast! DS RP lets you simulate the impact of different demand and supply strategies in just a matter of minutes.

Minimize the uncertainties that result from long lead times

Please don’t let anybody know we told you this, but all forecasts – even our forecasts – are wrong to some degree. With offshore manufacturing and the associated long lead times a fact of life, the implications of uncertainty are more critical than ever before.

Part of the magic of DS RP is that our system constantly responds to the dynamics of your business. If a product over-sells its forecast this week, DS RP will automatically increase the next period’s planned orders. DS RP includes in-transit and in-process goods in its planning calculations, and will selectively suggest schedule changes in response to market changes.

You can rely on DS RP’s dynamic Safety Time functionality to automatically build (and, when appropriate, reduce) inventories for seasonal items.