DRP

The Distributed Resource Planning (DRP) functionality of TimeTrends includes methodologies for calculating Safety Stock and systems to deplete or consume the forecasted requirements against existing inventory and open orders from suppliers.

Safety Stock

TimeTrends Safety Stock
Safety Stock is an additional quantity of inventory intended to protect against fluctuations in supply or demand. It acts as a form of stock-out insurance. The TimeTrends Safety Stock module has been designed to allow system administrators to assign Safety Stock parameters (minimum and maximum periods, and service level) that the program can then use in its Safety Stock calculations. A few advantages of this module are that it can process many Items at once, and that it can be incorporated into a customer's database with minimal overhead.

The results can be easily channeled to feed downstream IT subsystems, formatted reports, Web servers using .asp pages (to view the results in html format over the Internet), and so on.

Calculations By Product Family

Since all of the Aggregate Items are stored as standard TimeTrends SKU Items, any operation available for a base Item can be performed on an Aggregate Item (product family total). These operations can include statistical forecasting, reporting, "what-if" exploration, generating product family Seasonality for use with items that don't have enough historical data to generate meaningful seasonality on their own, etc. Aggregate Items are visually identified throughout the user interface and can also be easily segregated via the Filter mechanism described above for a specifically focused intervention.

Inventory Position

Period ending inventory is a component of the out-of-stock date calculations. This value is generally automatically updated in the forecast database during the monthly scheduled data migration update process and is available for other reporting processes as well. However, the current inventory position, as with all other data, can be updated at any frequency that you desire through the scheduling of automated processes.

TimeTrends Inventory Consumption
Inventory Consumption is the methodology by which existing inventory is consumed by the Forecast to pinpoint the date at which inventory will run out and, thus, inventory replenishment is required. It is an integral input to the TimeTrends Replenishment Report (below).

Inventory Replenishment Report

The Distributed Resource Planning (DRP) reports include methodology for calculating Safety Stock and systems to deplete or consume the forecasted requirements against existing inventory and open orders from suppliers.

The results of the Replenishment Report describe when there will be a stock-out, when a new order must be placed (taking lead-time into account), the amount currently on order, on hand and the average periodic usage.

The Safety Stock calculation that feeds this can be changed or modified to suit the customer's requirements and TimeTrends has three proven methods that we offer as "jumping off" points that address various customer requirements.

Other calculations can easily be added upon request. The results can be used to drive customized reports such as Purchase Advice Reports, Warehouse Overstock Reports, Warehouse Allocation Reports, etc. These reports are customized to give you visibility into the areas that are of greatest concern to you in your day-to-day business activities.