posted on 6/8/2011 5:11:17 PM
The maker of cloud-based ERP software rolls out a new module said to help manufacturers and others forecast demand and create inventory replenishment plans.
Cloud-based ERP provider NetSuite has added demand planning capabilities to its ERP suite, the company announced on Tuesday.
The new Demand Planning module aims to help manufacturers, distributors, and others more effectively align their sales expectations with their inventory. Users of NetSuite’s ERP software can tap the Demand Planning module to create an operational demand plan based on real-time and historical information housed in ERP data, the company said in a statement.
NetSuite outlined two methods by which companies can build a demand plan. The conventional method extrapolates from a company’s sales forecasts, including predictions for special events such as new product launches.
“Alternatively,” NetSuite said in its statement, “inventory plans can even be built using statistical forecasting models such as linear regression, moving averages, and seasonal averages, based on historical sales data.”
And while forecasting is still an inexact science, most experts agree that an automated approach offers benefits over a scattered, spreadsheet-based approach.
The Demand Planning module can deliver forecasts to a company’s supply chain partners so that upstream providers of raw materials and component parts can deliver inventory in concert with the projections. That kind of supply chain coordination helps companies reduce costly inventory, NetSuite noted in its statement.
The new module can also automate the inventory replenishment plan, generating purchase orders and work orders in anticipation of coming demand, the company said.
Valutek, a manufacturer of latex gloves and other cleanroom-friendly products, is a customer of NetSuite’s ERP software and an early adopter of the Demand Planning module. In the statement, the company’s VP of Finance, Kirk Mathers, said, “NetSuite’s new Demand Planning capabilities will allow Valutek to automate our previously manual spreadsheet-based planning exercises, allowing us more timely forecasts and better inventory management.”