Business Essentials for Excellence in Supply Chain Management

According to many, Collaborative Planning Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) is becoming a true business essential for excellence in Supply Chain Management. For CPG manufacturers, CPFR is helping extended supply chains become more demand-driven. As a business practice, CPFR helps trading partners generate accurate forecasts and set effective replenishment plans. Through CPFR, CPG manufacturers can expect to see significant benefits including higher service levels, decreased inventories and increased sales.

A number of applications make up the current replenishment mix that has existed in industry over the past two decades including classic re-order point min/max systems, quick response (QR), manufacturing resources planning (MRP), efficient consumer response (ECR), productions sales and inventory (PSI), just in time (JIT), just in time II (JIT II), vendor managed inventory (VMI), distribution resources planning (DRP) and jointly managed inventory (JMI), to name a few.

Likewise, QAD Demand Management and Collaborative Portal integrate capabilities that help manage demand more effectively and accommodate best practices. Relevant to forecasting and replenishment, QAD Demand Management and Collaborative Portal provide sophisticated forecasting and error tracking capabilities, complemented by demand-oriented collaboration, to create a powerful solution for meeting changing customer needs while reducing costs.

QAD Demand Management can pull in electronic and point-of-sale data, as well as plans from customers, suppliers and external departments. This enterprise approach to demand management helps enhance forecast accuracy and highlight opportunities to cut costs and increase revenues.

QAD Collaborative Portal facilitates sharing information with external participants such as sales representatives, customers and suppliers. Automatic notifications of exceptions to key supply chain members ensure that potential issues are addressed quickly. Users can easily manage by exception, record promotions, do ad hoc reporting and view data in user-defined detail.

Learn more about the QAD Demand Management Solution and Collaborative Portal.