Align Replenishment Planning to Your Objectives
Replenishment Planner
As an S&OP planner, responsiveness is the key to success in a rapidly changing market environment. The Arkieva replenishment planner provides a fast and accurate solution to multi-echelon supply chain planning; ensuring that the right quantity and mix of product is shipped to the right location at the right time. Integrated exception planning capability allows S&OP planners to react to potential problems quickly and effectively.
Replenishment Planner Key Capabilities:
Built-in scenario capability to allow what-ifs based on different demand, manufacturing and supply assumptions
Enables telescoping time-periods: daily for first X weeks, then weekly or monthly
Facilitates inventory balancing across a multi-echelon network of locations through various replenishment policies
Highlights unfilled demand instances, and indicates the cause for late orders for each instance
Provides a network view of projected inventory for each SKU for each time period, through easy drill-down reports
Can take component availability into account; does Material Requirement Planning (MRP) alongside Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP)
Replenishment Planner User Benefits:
Rapidly plan downstream supply across the network
Override by exception if necessary
Automatically considers open sales orders, fixed production, transfer, and purchase orders
Reporting across scenarios enables users to quickly compare trade-offs between scenarios, to make a more informed decision
Fair distribution of inventory across the network if supply is constrained
Arkieva Replenishment Planner uses a sequential rule-based algorithm to plan supply across a multi-echelon supply chain network. The built-in heuristic fills all orders before rebuilding safety stock and allows the replenishment planner software to evaluate alternate ways of fulfilling demand and selecting the most cost effective option. It uses business plan specific prioritization to fulfill demand for high priority customer/products over low priority ones. Integrated MRP capability allows supply chain planners to determine raw material procurement and sourcing requirements in conjunction with product distribution. Built-in scenario capability allows supply chain planners to perform what-if analyses based on different demand and supply assumptions.
The replenishment planner has the unique capability of planning in multiple time dimensions within the same model – daily buckets in the near term and weekly or monthly buckets further out. It is typically suited for near term supply planning (4-13 week time frame) that should be processed sequentially to recommend a stable and predictable solution (as opposed to an optimal one).
The algorithm provides a detailed trace report with every decision made by the model. This makes the plan easily discernible to the supply chain planners. When shortages arise, intuitive drill-down reports outline the reasons for missed orders; reasons include “lead time constraint”, “capacity constraint” or “component shortages”, to name a few.
