Inventory Vision™ is the supply chain planning part of the Logistics Vision Suite. It allows enterprises to achieve and maintain the desired customer service level at the lowest possible inventory cost through demand forecasting and optimized replenishment. Inventory Vision is powered by demand forecasting and replenishment algorithms provided by Syncron Demand Forecasting and Replenishment Planning software product (Syncron DFRP, www.syncron.com).

Demand Forecasting

The core of Inventory Vision is a powerful Demand Forecasting management tool capable of achieving accurate forecasts. It drives the system and provides a range of special features that allow users to detect and respond to changes in demand. Its main functions are the following:

• Base calculations and Forecast Disaggregation
• Forecast Period Breakdown and Forecast adjustments
• Seasonal variation
• Non-repeating trends (Volume Density)

Replenishment Planning

Effective Inventory Management is essential in today's rapidly changing environment. Too little stock can lead to poor customer service with consequent loss of market share and confidence. Too much stock is an inefficient use of working capital and can lead to obsolescence. Replenishment Planning (RP) ensures that stocks are kept above the minimum level and below the maximum level.

Effective forward planning requires not only current data but also an accurate view of the future. However, whilst a forecast of expected demand is essential for inventory planning, it does not consider constraints from supply.

RP contains two inventory management modules:

Stock Replenishment, which provides a single replenishment order to be made today, and
Order Scheduling, which projects order quantities out into the future and thus offer a planning tool for the replenishment process.

Modelling and Simulation

Simulator is a tool that allows the user to test the impact of any business decision in advance of implementation. It includes modelling and simulation functionality.

Modelling incorporates all the RP Modules in "modelling mode" on a workstation, which can utilize copies or subsets of live data. Capital investment modelling is also provided which identifies the investment in stock required to support different scenarios, either in summary or at a detailed product level. Such objective assessment of possible strategies can speed up the decision making process as well as reducing uncertainty about the future.

Facilities are provided to simulate both forecasting and inventory over any time period, which run in "compressed time" mode, allowing the user to compare the impact of a given scenario against historical data. In addition, tools are provided to assess replenishment policy and to undertake Pareto analysis.

Executive Information System

It is an intelligent query (IQ) tool allowing the easy creation of all possible reports from all IV modules. Reports can be printed as hard copy, exported to spreadsheet or flat file formats, or published as HTML. The result is easy access to valuable information that in turn leads to informed, rapid decisions.