Demand Solutions' 2008 Customer Conference

Session Abstracts

General Sessions

Keynote
Bill Harrison, President of Demand Management, Inc.

Keynote
André Martin, Co-founder of Factory2Shelf and author

Product Update
Bill Harrison, President of Demand Management, Inc.

Interactive Workshop: How to Maximize Customer Service Dependent on Demand VariabilityLearn how to define ranges and set up filters to categorize your database into more manageable sections of data. Set up global changes and run the ABC Analysis tool to clearly define your different data profiles (such as new items vs. irregular sellers vs. promotional vs. steady items) to assist in applying corresponding safety stock strategies. This workshop will also run through step-by-step calculations to help you understand the different methods used within the Service Level Optimizer tool. You will set up parameters required to either simulate safety strategies or actually update the database by product profile.

Interactive Workshop: How to Ensure Forecast Adjustments are Adding Value to the BusinessAre your forecast adjustments adding value? Through hands-on exercises, you will be able to determine which forecast is consistently performing closer to actual sales – the system or your adjustments? Learn how to establish when to ADJUST or ACCEPT the forecast. Also in this workshop, you will discover how to capture your detailed performance data to enable a forecast score card for more than one month at a time. Determine, over a number of months, whether your forecast adjustments are adding value to the forecast review process. You will also learn how to define which items require closer scrutiny based on forecast simulation error – the items that could actually require adjustments. Finally learn the difference between forecast simulation error and forecast performance error! 

Breakout Sessions

Forecast Performance Review: A No-Excuses Approach to Measuring and Improving Forecast Accuracy
Improving forecast accuracy is perhaps the most significant return that customers expect to receive on their investment in Demand Solutions Forecast Management. If the steps for tracking forecast accuracy are fairly straightforward with simple math, you might be asking “why then is it so difficult to execute?” From our experience, the most common problems companies face when rolling out a forecast accuracy process are a lack of participation and excuses. Forecast Performance Review has consistently been the highest-rated session in Demand Solutions conference history, and will motivate you to achieve a no-excuses approach to measuring forecast accuracy.

Attend this session to learn:

• Key elements of forecast analysis within DS Forecast Management
• Multiple methods of evaluating saved forecasts
• The importance of forecast metrics to be aligned with accountability
• Advice on how to establish a measurement process that sustains accountability and continual improvement of forecast accuracy

Reduce Fuel Costs with DS Requirements Planning

Tom Benning, Supply Chain Management Director Steinhafels Furniture

As transportation costs continue to climb, optimizing shipping containers is more important than ever. Steinhafels, a fast-growing furniture and mattress retailer in Wisconsin, uses the Container Loading functionality in Demand Solutions Requirements Planning to ensure that the most efficient amount of product is shipped in every container. The robust piece of functionality guarantees that Steinhafel’s collections and sets, for example, are imported with their corresponding pieces – so that every headboard has a matching bed and every sofa has a matching love seat.

Attend this session to learn:

• An analysis of Demand Solutions within Steinhafel’s unique supply chain situations: mattresses (very short lead times), domestic truck loading, importing full containers, and proper proportion of collections/sets
• How to plan Vendor Minimums and Warehouse Capacity
• Solutions to common furniture retail challenges
• Version 11 improvements to the Container Loading functionality and why you should upgrade

The Software Can Do It For You: RP

Prashant Sanghvi, Director of Logistics in the Supply Chain Group Ventura Foods

Through the use of additional functionality in DS Requirements Planning, Ventura Foods reduced its raw material costs by $500,000 and its transportation costs by $50,000. One of the largest producers of margarine and also a good portion of the country’s salad dressings and other flavorings was able to tap into cost savings by taking advantage of powerful functionality within Demand Solutions such as Order-Defined User Plans, Performance Summary and Action Messages.

Attend this session to learn:

• How to use Performance Summary to drive KPI improvements
• How to find problem areas with Action Messages
• How to reduce raw material and transportation costs with DS RP
• How to gain visibility into production – Ventura Foods now can plan production two weeks in advance whereas it used to only plan two days in advance

Only 95 Days until January 1: How to Use DS for Your Most Effective & Efficient Budgeting Cycle Ever

Scott Wise, Manager of Forecasting & Global Demand Planning Ames True Temper

In recent years, Demand Solutions has been specifically enhanced to help companies of all sizes manage Budgets and Flex Plans (aka “Latest Estimates”). Scott Wise of Ames True Temper, a leading North American manufacturer and marketer of non-powered lawn and garden products, will share his experiences and lessons learned while using Demand Solutions’ latest functionality during this year’s budget cycle – just days before it begins on October 1.

Attend this session to learn:

• Fundamental budget development, management and review tips using DS FM, DS S&OP & DS View
• 7 little-known Demand Solutions features that we have added in recent years specifically to help you manage Budgets and Latest Estimates
• How Scott Wise of Ames True Temper significantly enhanced his company’s 2009 budgeting process
• Actionable business advice from Bill Whiteside, a Demand Solutions representative for 20 years and consistently the highest-rated conference presenter, on how to increase your company’s budgeting success and have a more effective and efficient budgeting process
• A dozen practical ideas that you will be able to put into practice in your budgeting process as soon as you return from the conference

Reconcile Sales Forecasts with the Demand Plan

Eric Story, Support Services Manager Smith International Beth Adamas, Senior Corporate Planning Manager California Eastern Laboratories

When you get a sales forecast from across the globe, how do you incorporate it into your demand plan? Two DS Collaborate users will share their unique stories and advice on how they reconcile the sales forecast with the demand plan.

Eric Story of Smith International, a supplier of products and services for oil and gas exploration and other industrial markets, has been using DS Collaborate for two years to realistically plan for the company’s raw material purchases. Eric takes the forecasts he creates in Forecast Management and publishes to the secured DS Collaborate web portal. Users can then edit the forecast via an internet browser, easily communicating the changes they want to Eric. Additional visibility for the Field Sales Planners is achieved by including planning information from Demand Solutions Requirements Planning so users know how the forecast is being supported.

Beth Adamas of California Eastern Labs, a provider of RF semiconductors and optoelectronics for cell phones and GPS devices, has also been using DS Collaborate for two years. California Eastern Labs has configured DS Collaborate to include its annual fiscal budgeting process as well as executing its demand forecasting.

Attend this session to learn:

• How to customize the information streams provided to the forecast providers, giving them the tools for intelligent assessment
• How to document and archive all changes into the consensus forecast
• How to increase forecast accuracy through incorporating market intelligence
• How to decrease the time it takes to integrate a worldwide forecast
• How to execute a budgeting process in DS Collaborate

Turn That Mountain of POS Data into Information You Can Use

Tirzah Hancock Meyer Corporation

Many hard goods manufacturers receive weekly EDI 852 transmissions from the retailers and can’t do much with the data except print large Access reports. Learn how you can use the point-of-sale (POS) data with Demand Solutions Retail Planning to manage your product line more efficiently and improve your bottom line. Also, hear what led Meyer Corporation, U.S., a leading provider of cookware, bakeware and tabletop items, with product lines such as Circulon, Anolon, KitchenAid Cookware, Faberware Cookware and BonJour, to implement DS Retail Planning.

Attend this session to learn:

• Several techniques you can use to manage POS data and which one is right for your company
• Meyer Corporation’s business drivers to implementing DS Retail Planning
• The key benefits of managing POS data
• Tips and advice from hard goods expert Fred Tolbert, CPIM, APICS Southeast District Director

Sales & Operations Planning Case Study

Jeffrey R. Carlisle, Director Forecasting and Market Analysis SKF Group

The SKF Group is one of the leading global suppliers of products, solutions and services in the area comprising rolling bearings, seals, mechatronics, services and lubrication systems. With 19 production facilities in 15 states, SKF executives wanted to be able to make informed, strategic decisions about supply and demand in order to achieve the company’s business goals. The company adopted an S&OP process and implemented Demand Solutions S&OP to execute it. The results have been substantial. SKF has increased customer service levels, reduced finished goods inventory and enhanced its executive decision-making process.

Attend this session to learn:

• The steps SKF took to successfully implement and execute an S&OP process
• Firsthand benefits SKF has gained from Demand Solutions S&OP software
• The challenges SKF ran into along the way and how it conquered them
• Realistic advice about monthly S&OP meetings and on how to overcome communication barriers between departments (hint: it involves taking your data guru out to lunch!)

Cut Your Forecasting Task in Half with DS FM: ABC Analysis and Planning Bills

Mark Smith, Senior Production & Inventory Control Analyst American Air Filter International

American Air Filter International (AAF), a leading provider of comprehensive air products and filtration systems, uses Demand Solutions ABC Analysis and Planning Bills to efficiently manage its 9,500 key-level records. By looking at aggregates and using peg files generated through ABC analysis in Demand Solutions, AAF saves time and money.

Attend this session to learn:

• How to identify your most profitable opportunities through ABC Analysis, which applies Pareto’s Principle (the 80/20 rule) to your demand planning efforts
• How to make adjustments and let planning bills distribute the mix  
• How to stratify any level of records in DS to save time and money
• How to get down to SKUs that are really driving your business and sharpen accuracy

11 Things a Demand Solutions Power User Should Know Are you a Demand Solutions power user or striving to become one? If so, this session is for you. Modeled after an interactive one-day workshop, “11 Things a Demand Solutions Power User Should Know” will provide an informative and enlightening summary of advanced features along with advanced use of some of Demand Solutions’ most basic features.

Attend this session to learn how to:

1. Fine-tune your forecasting process by mastering all of DS FM’s Batch Forecasting Options
2. Manage product replacements and phase-ins with Supersession
3. Create User-Defined Fields, Field Tables and Custom Labels
4. Create Control Files, and use Control Files to work more efficiently
5. Advanced use of Curves for new products and highly seasonal products
6. Create custom Graphs – and share them with other users.
7. Import and incorporate multiple versions of the forecast in Performance Analysis – including Customer Forecasts, pre-implementation forecasts, etc.
8. Use Math functions (as well as alternative units of measure) when Importing and Exporting Data.
9. Import and integrate financial plans and budgets into DSFM
10. Use Filters and Your Plan to identify and review significant forecast changes from month to month.
11. Use the DS Batch Builder to automate your monthly process with user-defined scripts

Furniture Retailing Special Interest Group

DS RP: What’s New & Enhancement Voting
Are there enhancements you would like to see in your Demand Solutions products? Enhancement Voting sessions at this year’s conference are your only chance to place a formal request for future releases of DS software.

Product Lifecycle Management

Steven E. Blasek, Manager, Demand Planning Day-Timers, Inc. A subsidiary of ACCO Brands, Inc.

In managing more than 20,000 unique SKUs of which 50 percent become obsolete every 12-18 months, Day-Timers, a manufacturer of organizational products such as calendars and planners, uses Demand Solutions to effectively plan for new item forecasts, promotions and phasing out obsolete products. Steven Blasek, an experienced Demand Solutions user, will share his knowledge of using Demand Solutions Forecast Management and Requirements Planning for successful product lifecycle management.

Attend this session to learn:

• Creating and applying seasonality curves both interactively and through the use of Global changes
• Re-forecasting new items by interpolating a forecast from available history, therefore providing a basis to allow for a quick response to a new product’s initial sales
• Using Supersession to transfer demand activity from old items to new items
• Using Forecast Performance Management to monitor new product sales activity vs. projections
• Batch forecasting considerations using Seasonality Curves
• Use of Birth and Discontinue dates for lifecycle planning

DS FM: What’s New & Enhancement Voting Are there enhancements you would like to see in your Demand Solutions products? Enhancement Voting sessions at this year’s conference are your only chance to place a formal request for future releases of DS software.

DS S&OP: What’s New & Enhancement Voting
Are there enhancements you would like to see in your Demand Solutions products? Enhancement Voting sessions at this year’s conference are your only chance to place a formal request for future releases of DS software.