Materials Management for VAI ERP

Sales Forecasting

Powered by machine learning, S2K Sales Forecasting is designed to help you assess the likely demand levels so that you can properly manage your inventory and have adequate resources in place. S2K Forecasting uses AI-driven advanced algorithms such as exponential smoothing, linear regression, Holt-Winters, and others that measure data points in a series.

For each item, each method is analyzed, and the system will automatically recommend the best forecasting algorithm with the highest accuracy. Users can then review the system-generated forecast and manually adjust future predictions based on outside forces and sales opportunities. The final adjusted forecast for each item is utilized in S2K Manufacturing for MRP, and S2K Purchasing for enhanced suggested purchasing. VAI’s performance monitoring tools provide instant analysis on the effectiveness of forecasts against actual sales.

Demand Modeling

Using Demand modeling users can create a demand profiles that reflect a sales pattern and assign that profile to an individual item. The user can then enter in overall expected sales and the system will automatically create an adaptive demand distribution that best fits the demand profile. Demand profiling can be an effective tool for items that do not have historical data or when future usage patterns are not expected to be similar to those in the past.

Suggested Purchasing

Automated purchasing systems are a key tool in helping businesses reduce inventory and increase sales. S2K Suggested Purchasing supports both distributed or consolidated buying at the Location or the Item Level. The system performs complex calculations for each item at each location, looking at usage, seasonality, trends, vendor lead times, safety stock, and then flags those items with specific conditions that are beyond user defined tolerances. The system can optimally push order quantities up to get prepaid freight, or to hit vendor minimums, or to cube out a full container, if desired — all while honoring pack sizes. Additionally, it can consider multiple warehouses in the distribution network and check for overstocked items and facilitate stock transfers before buyers’ place orders to the vendor. 

Target Buying

Just-In-Time inventory planning often shifts the cost of carrying inventory back to the vendor which may lead to higher costs of goods and less profits for the distributor. S2K’s target buying feature allows buyers to take advantage of costs savings by purchasing up to a vendor targets to lower costs based on volume purchasing. Users can set targets by dollar amount, quantity, units, cube, weight or number of pallets and the system will automatically suggest the optimum mix and quantities of items to buy to hit the vendor target. The buyer can then compare the extra carrying cost to the savings to determine if buying to hit the target makes economic sense.

Material Requirement Planning (MRP)

Tracking proper material levels is an important and time-consuming aspect of manufacturing. S2K Enterprise for Manufacturing’s Material Requirement Planning (MRP) software module eradicates scheduling and purchasing problems and speeds up the workflow process. Powerful yet easy to use, this feature aids purchasing and production managers evaluate current and future material and distribution requirements and permits further successful planning.

The material requirement planning system is closely integrated with the Customer Orders, Inventory, Sales Analysis (Forecasting), Purchasing, and Manufacturing modules of S2K Enterprise and is responsive to company and plant-specific criteria. This MRP software dissects the current stock inventory of all raw materials and finished goods. With VAI’s material requirement planning system, you can accurately identify when and how much material should be purchased or manufactured based on a time-phased analysis of production orders, purchase orders, sales orders, up-to-date inventory levels, and forecasts. This demand analysis can be viewed daily, weekly, or monthly.

Complete pegging is sustained, allowing the user to drill down to the important data such as manufacturing order due dates, production order due dates, and the customer orders making up the needs of an item.

A material requirement planning run will produce suggestions based on considerations such as minimum balance, lead time, etc. During End of Day processing, our MRP software will classify items as critical, expedited, or push-out. These suggestions can then be analyzed through the MRP inquiry function and modified or converted into manufacturing work orders and vendor purchase orders.