Balancing demand and supply
In the chemical segment products are usually sold from stock. Obviously, forecasting and planning are the keys to success. Therefore IFS Applications for the chemical industry offers integrated functionality for demand planning that interacts with the master schedule.
IFS/Demand Planning supports several forecasting models as well as collaborative forecasting, where a forecast or a set of forecasts can be sent to a customer and/or product manager for review. When using collaborative forecasting, the only tool a receiver needs is a web browser. Other forecasting functionality includes seasonality and aggregated forecast capability. The master schedule functionality allows you to work with different master schedule scenarios before deciding which scenario the production should be planning against. Each scenario can be checked against the resource requirements planning, where capacities can be checked against bottlenecks in the production. Batch optimization
When the production is batch oriented, every batch has to be fully consumed e.g. packed to finished goods level at once, which in a make-to-stock environment means optimizing against forecast. The batch balancing functionality supports the selection of suitable products that are most likely to be needed in stock. Batch balancing is also an excellent tool for keeping multilevel production together and traceable.
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