Whether distribution is just one part of your larger manufacturing or retail operations, or if distribution is your main business focus, you need software that comprehensively addresses Supply Chain Execution:
• Order management
• Enterprise-wide inventory control
• Advanced planning and replenishment
• Purchasing
• Warehouse management
• Transportation management
• Equipment management

More and more companies are realizing today's Enterprise Resource Planning applications, which work so well for manufacturing, and corporate transactions do not adequately address the dynamic and complex requirements of Supply Chain Execution.

Similarly, Advanced Planning Systems, which grew out of resource and capacity planning processes for manufacturers, are concerned primarily with the planning of production, not distribution. Niche Supply Chain solutions by themselves have only limited order management and transportation capabilities.
To succeed in today's active market, you need the ability to address changing customer requirements, your own business growth and an evolving market.
A software solution must address these functionality issues completely, yet be flexible so you can incorporate your own best business practices.
Distribution is a critical link in your supply chain. It deserves the attention of a best-of-class Supply Chain Execution solution.

Demand Planning

Demand Planning synchronizes customer demand to inventory supply processes, such as a firm's manufacturing, distribution or procurement capabilities. Demand Planning reconciles historical and recent demand history, existing customer orders, point-of-sale (POS) data, market forecasts and other information to generate a clear, graphical overview of demand by item, location, customer and/or group. This can increase forecast accuracy by up to 40%.

Demand Planning Features Include:
• Item & Group Forecasting
• Self Selection Forecast Models
• Personalized Data Views
• Kit and Promotional Pack Support
• ABC Analysis
• Product Life Cycle Management with Simulation

Inventory Planning

Inventory Planning calculates the optimal balance between inventory quantities and desired levels of service, based on industry best practices. Inventory Planning determines policies which synchronize customer demand to supply processes, such as a firm's manufacturing, distribution or procurement capabilities. With its extensive simulation capabilities and time-phased support, Inventory Planning helps cut inventory costs while meeting all customer requirements that can vary by product, group or other criteria.

Inventory Planning Features Include:
• Time phased view of inventory
• Graphical Simulations of inventory trade-offs
• Views of dependent and independent demand
• 50 Inventory Management variables for every form of demand pattern
• Kit and Promotional Pack Support

Event Planning

Event Planning, a causal-based forecasting solution, is a complete, plug-and-play answer for product life-cycle management and promotion planning. Event Planning integrates closely with Demand Planning to synchronize customer demand to inventory supply processes, such as a firm's manufacturing, distribution or procurement capabilities. By using advanced causal techniques based on neural networks, Event Planning incorporates market, competitive, promotional and seasonal impacts into forecasts, substantially increasing accuracy.

Event Planning Features Include:
• Promotion Planning
• Self Learning Capabilities using Artificial Intelligence
• Causal-based Forecasting
• Promotion Profitability Simulations

Replenishment Planning

Replenishment Planning reconciles customer demand with an organization's manufacturing, distribution or procurement capabilities enabling rapid response to changing requirements. Given manufacturing capacities, inventory investment, current orders and desired service levels, Replenishment Planning provides constrained, time-phased Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP). Replenishment Planning utilizes EDI to support advanced automatic replenishment programs such as Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI), Efficient Consumer Response (ECR) and Quick Response (QR).

Replenishment Planning Features Include:
• Constrained, time-phased Distribution Resource Planning
• Multi-site sourcing and allocation
• Supports continuous replenishment strategies
• Proactive action messages
• EDI integration
• Supports Available to Promise (ATP) methodologies

• Inventory Planning. Allows trading partners to revise inventory goals and objectives like service vs. turn targets; facilitates joint revisions and reviews on line; and enables you to replace inventory with capacity over time.

• Consumption Monitoring. Makes it easy to track inventory consumption at the point of demand and compare real-time inventory levels to inventory targets. Agents automatically monitor consumption and send messages to the system as well as user in-box.

• Order Review, Approval and Tracking. Automatically proposes replenishment orders and sends them to your trading partners in-box for review. For instance, time-phased purchase plans can be shared with suppliers, or time-phased replenishment orders can be shared with customers.