Demand Planning

NEW! Demand Planning Version 3.0 is now available and includes new and enhanced features.

Better decision-making and increased profits are closer than ever when you are given the ability to forecast accurately. MaxQ's Demand Planning module is designed specifically to assist you in your sales and inventory planning efforts by creating accurate forecasts, using your sales history from Dynamics SL (or any other source), in combination with its powerful statistical forecasting models.

In an effort to satisfy all mainstream business forecasting requirements, this expert system can automatically select forecasting models from the following five classes (or optional user-defined):
  • Simple Methods- for very short or extremely volatile data, Forecast Pro includes moving average models
  • Curve Fitting- Provides a quick and easy way to identify the general form of the (i.e. straight line, quadratic, exponential and s-curve)
  • Low Volume Models- Croston's Intermittent Demand model and discrete data models are provided to accommodate low volume and "sparse" data (i.e. where the demand is often zero)
  • Exponential Smoothing- Twelve different Holt-Winters exponential smoothing models are provided for accommodation of a wide range of data characteristics. The robustness of exponential smoothing makes it ideal when there are no leading indicators and when the data is too short or volatile for Box-Jenkins. You can select the model and set the parameters yourself or let Forecast Pro do it automatically
  • Box-Jenkins- For stable data sets, Forecast Pro supports a multiplicative seasonal Box-Jenkins model. The model can be built completely automatically or interactively using a full range of screen-oriented diagnostics
Features and Functionality
  • Uses sales history and statistical techniques to predict future usage
  • User defined planning groups on any level or combination of levels, such as product and customer class, or territory
  • Allowance for manual entry of partial customers while allowing past usage (excluding effects of manual entries) for the remaining to drive statistical calculations. Results in a complete forecast that includes both groups
  • Forecast group entry uses both bottom up or top down methods of maintenance
  • Extends exponential smoothing to make allowances for special events like promotion, sales, shutdown, seasons or other occurrences
  • Complete integration with Supply Chain Planning to automatically plan the inventory needs of the forecast
  • Capacity to maintain an unlimited number of forecast versions
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