Sales Forecast Maintenance

The first line contains the forecasts either issued by the diaggregation of the Sales plan of S&OP through the commercial BOMs or the forecasts calculated by the Demand Forecasting Module.

In second line (Frcst entry) the forecasts can be recorded for the selected item. You can contain negative values to correct the forecasts appearing on the first line.

The third line is equal to the sum of the first two columns. These data are taken into account by the MRP calculation.

In the following line (Ord. consuming), one finds the customer orders consuming these forecasts. It is the sum of the ordered quantities (that the orders are validated or not) which appear in lines with the box “Consume forecasts” checked. The way the forecast are consumed by the orders depends on the Consumption option.

The Expected column is equal to the difference between the forecast and orders consuming forecast.

The line Ord. N.cns. posts the orders not consuming the forecasts.

The last Order totals line indicates, for information, the total of the sales orders, consuming the forecast or not.

Fields

Sites:

If the distribution is managed, one can enter the sales forecasts of per distribution center. Select it in the drop-down list.

Item Id:

The Sales Forecast Item code.

If forecasts exist for the item, it is displayed in the grid. You can then click on a line of this grid to modify the data of the selected forecast.

Forecast entry:

Quantity of the item you expect to sell on the date or during the period.

Select a line on the table and type the quantity directly in the cell.

Pour to erase the forecast, type on the Del key.

Buttons

In addition to the standard buttons, this page comprises the following buttons:

Delete	Allows to erase all the forecasts for the item.
Forecasting Model	Calls the Demand Forecasting Model for the item.
Table	Post the Sales Forecast Table for all the items. When one selects a forecast on the table, the distribution center and the item code are recalled in the Forecast Maintenance page.
Summary	Post the Sales Forecast Summary for the item in all the distribution centers.

Forecasts consumption by actual sales orders

Forecast consumption is the process that replaces forecast demand with sales order demand. Each time you place a sales order, you create actual demand. If the actual demand is forecasted, you typically want to reduce the forecast demand by the sales order quantity to avoid overstating demand.

The successive sales orders consume the forecasts in the sense that the net forecasts (corresponding to the remaining expected sales) are estimated as the initial forecasts made before the sales minus the actual sales orders observed in practice.

If the sales orders are different from the forecasts, it can be necessary to update the forecasts for next periods: for example if the sales are greater than the forecasts it could mean that some customer orders have been applied more rapidly than expected. It is thus necessary to update forecasts in order to avoid overestimating future demands.

In the Consumption panel, the user can choose, for each item, the forecast consumption algorithm:

Period: the orders consume the forecasts exclusively for the current period.

Backward: if the order of a period is larger than the corresponding sales forecast, the excess is consumed with respect to forecasts corresponding to preceding periods.

Forward if the order of a period is larger than the corresponding sales forecast, the excess is consumed with respect to forecasts corresponding to forthcoming periods.

For these two situations, the maximal number of period for the excess consumption, is defined in the Nb of periods cell.