Title: Entalysis Reporting, Analysis, Workflow and Functionality Solutions
Duration: 11m 57s

[00:02] Welcome to this video on Entalysis solutions.

[00:05] Firstly, what is an Entalysis solution?

[00:09] An Entalysis solution gives your staff the functionality and reporting to run any of your business processes as desired, rather than as dictated by your current IT systems.

[00:21] ERP systems manage the job of being all things to all people very well. For many processes within your sales, operations or personnel functions, their standard templates modify the core system to your requirements. However, there are always a few crucial processes, like marketing analyses or purchasing for example, where your business requires a more sophisticated analysis or functionality beyond the capabilities of these templates. This is where Entalysis Extensions comes in.

[00:54] In this video we’ll look at two focused supply chain solutions, which demonstrate the flexibility and capability of our Extensions software. In both cases, Extensions links seamlessly to the ERP system, reading, uploading and modifying data as required.

[01:13] So let’s have a look at these two sample solutions. Demo 1 is a purchasing and inventory optimisation solution for a sample distributor, for whom accurately balancing stock availability against stock value is vital. The crucial business processes, therefore, are the stock policy, demand forecast, lead time calculation, and purchase order requirements planning. These are managed by Extensions as the main ERP system’s functionality and reporting lack the necessary sophistication.

[01:45] The Dashboard Report highlights the current status to users at a glance by reporting the key performance indicators for each product range. A traffic light-style indicator highlights well-performing and problematic KPIs, which can be drilled into for root cause analysis and corrective actions.

[02:04] Here we see Product Range B’s stock availability has fallen to 91% and is highlighted as a problem because lost sales will be significant. Poor stock availability is caused by any combination of a poor forecast, exceptional demand or poor supplier delivery performance. Note here that the delivery performance is also highlighted as a problem.

[02:29] So, let’s investigate, starting with this item with 9 stock-outs in the last year. Firstly, let’s have a look at the stock levels and exceptional demand.

[02:39] This Service Level Graph shows the service level being achieved. A replenishment order is triggered when the free stock falls below the min level; hence, the remaining free stock at this point must satisfy any demand over the lead time until the replenishment arrives. This total lead time demand is shown by the orange bars, which never breach the min level shown as the blue area. Extensions has correctly forecast the demand, which is steady and without exceptions, so neither poor forecasting nor exceptional demand are the cause of the poor stock availability.

[03:15] Next, let’s have a look at the supplier’s delivery performance. If we filter the Stock-out Analysis to this supplier, we see that they supply 37 of the 182 items suffering stock-outs, which is a significant proportion.

[03:31] This supplier has agreed a 90-day replenishment lead time for 90% of all orders, but is actually taking 136 days to achieve this. Because most orders are satisfied within 90 days, the first step here would be a discussion with the supplier to correct the problems causing the longer delivery orders. Increasing the lead time, which will increase order quantities on a struggling supplier, would not be the most effective course of action initially.

[03:59] The analyses and reports for each product group fall into two main sections: the first is inventory optimisation, which manages the process and contains the ABC analyses, stock value forecasts and reports for action.

[04:14] The Falling Demand Report shows items with demand trending downwards and any excess stock, which require review. This item’s demand is falling significantly and, looking at last year’s weekly demand, we can see a decline, although this is more clearly reported in the quarterly demand graph over recent years. The sales team also have visibility of this report and will advise if the decline is planned within the product life cycle or whether a competitor is winning sales.

[04:45] The Validate Fixed Stock Levels Report shows all items where the system is forecasting a different stock level based on actual demand. For new items whose sales are building to predicted levels, this is expected. However, let’s investigate this item whose fixed stock level seems too low. This is a new item, as shown by the Quarterly Demand Report and looking at the Service Level Graph, we see the orange bars have breached the min level, so this item has already exceeded its predicted sales. We should set the stock policy to ‘auto’ and let the system forecast the item from here.

[05:25] The stock value forecasts and ABC analyses report the cost-benefit trade-off for the current stock policy and can be drilled into via the product type and supplier, down to the item level. If we drill into Supplier 508, a main supplier with a low stock turn of 1.7, we see that the stock policy will reduce overall stock levels significantly over the next year as excess stock is consumed. Some excess stock remains after 12 months, however, and looking at the ABC Analysis with its few ‘A’ items and a long tail of ‘B’s and ‘C’s, the excess stock will take some time to diminish.

[06:04] The second set of reports covers purchasing, which includes the proposed orders for review and release. The Supplier Purchase Order Summary shows the proposed, outstanding and late purchase orders, split by supplier. Potential stock-outs for ‘A’ items help identify problem areas, and we see that Supplier 248 has the most at 14. Drilling into the Proposed Purchase Order Detail, we see the proposed quantity highlighted in grey with the dates of the next replenishment and estimated stock-out shown alongside. The orders are released after review.

[06:41] And the last report we’ll look at is the Outstanding Purchase Orders for this supplier where overdue orders are highlighted. These can then be sent in a report to the supplier for chasing.

[06:52] Demo 2 is also an inventory optimisation solution, this time for a sample manufacturer’s supply chain, which sets safety stocks to overcome forecast errors, helping to ensure delivery performance. The forecast is collaborative, includes promotions, and is accurate at the monthly level. However, when the forecast is split into weekly buckets, to match the frequency of replenishments from the manufacturing sites to the distribution hubs, the greater granularity naturally incurs proportionally larger errors. Safety stocks should only be set to cover forecast shortfalls, where demand is higher, while forecast surpluses obviously do not need safety stocks and are ignored.

[07:36] The demo is based on a country’s national distribution centre, split by product range. Drilling into Product Range A, the ABC Graph shows the Pareto analysis and the expected 80% of sales from 20% of products.

[07:51] The Analysis Report details the items within the product range, showing the editable manufacturing and transit lead times, service level, forecast variance and the calculated safety stock. The effect of the stock policy on work in progress and the impact on shelf life for these perishable goods is also calculated and reported.

[08:14] So let’s have a look at Item 1 in greater depth. The Forecast Variance Graph shows the monthly collaborative forecast as the green line, the corresponding monthly sales as the red line and the forecast variance as a green bar in surplus and a red bar in shortfall. Over the analysis period, the forecast is mostly in surplus, with only March and August in forecast shortfall. However, even the months in forecast surplus will have some weeks in forecast shortfall, requiring a safety stock to ensure customer service levels.

[08:50] This is highlighted by the Safety Stock Analysis Graph which shows the forecast, demand and service level relationship. The forecast, split into weekly buckets, is shown as green bars, while the demand is shown as negative red bars. The forecast surpluses and shortfalls are calculated by subtracting the demand from the forecast within the replenishment lead time. The green area shows the forecast surplus while the red area shows the forecast shortfall. The blue area shows the safety stock.

[09:22] Where the safety stock is greater than the forecast shortfall, the deliveries will be met 100% on-time-in-full. For this item, we have set a high 99% service level and we can see that just one day’s demand within this 100-day sample will not have quite enough safety stock to fully satisfy the requirement; the options are to expedite replenishments, liaise with the customer and agree a slight schedule revision, or increase the safety stock in the longer term.

[09:52] Safety stocks at this client were originally set according to the monthly forecast variance, but this method, using the rolling lead time forecast shortfall, reduces this item’s safety stock from 12,200 units to 7700 for a target 99% on-time-in-full service level, a reduction of 37%.

[10:16] Every business has its own priorities, sensitivities and specific quirks which require certain business processes to function and be analysed and in a certain way. However, because many IT systems have to suit a wide audience, their ultimate depth and sophistication naturally fall short for these few crucial business processes. This hamstrings performance.

[10:40] The options are

1. [10:42] Customize your IT systems, which is expensive, time-consuming and may not be transferable to upgrades.
2. [10:50] Run the functionality and analyses on a multitude of different spreadsheets, which are hard to coordinate, have limited reporting structure and can not update IT systems.
3. [11:02] Use Entalysis Extensions.

[11:05] Our solutions work in harmony with your existing IT systems and cover any business process which makes up the core functions of supply chain, operations, personnel, finance, or sales and marketing. Examples include demand forecasting, personnel performance, business intelligence, and the performance management of any process.

[11:27] Although the potential scope is as wide as your business, our solutions are in fact highly focussed, enhancing functionality or reporting only for the business processes crucial to your business. We give users the tools they need, without overwhelming them with data or unnecessary complexity.

[11:46] Thank you for watching and please see our other videos on Extensions’ functionality and configuration.

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