Pronto Xi Advanced Forecasting is a key module to optimise your Retail Supply Chain planning. It improves your inventory management by providing accurate means of predicting the future demand for your products. It also allows you to consider a number of different factors that may affect your forecasts by calculating forecasts based on entered sales orders, goods shipped or inventory transfers (usage). In addition, it accounts for trends as well as seasonal fluctuations and applies appropriate smoothing factors. Advanced Forecasting sets out to achieve four important purchasing-related goals:

• Modelling - Develop a model of the sales pattern for each item to be forecasted built up from Trend, Seasonality and Random fluctuation;
• Forecasting - The model can be used to generate new forecasts;
• Enquiry - Amend the model by incorporating feedback from operation results;
• Performance - Provide an objective criteria to assess forecast accuracy.

Advanced Forecasting includes:

• Graphical displays;
• Exception handling and reporting;
• Analysis filtering by territory, warehouse and state groupings;
• Supports steady, seasonal demand, averaging and trends.

Intelligent Forecasting

Advanced Forecasting attempts to determine which pattern forms the “best fit” for the demand of each inventory item. To do this, it calculates a forecast using several techniques over a three month period and the technique that produces the forecast closest to the measured demand becomes the technique of choice for that item. Forecasting techniques supported include Triple Exponential Smoothing (Winter’s method) and 3 Month Moving Averaging.

In the triple exponential smoothing techniques, past observations are given exponentially smaller weights as the observations get older. This method provides better exponentially smoothed forecasts of data where there is expected or known to be seasonal variation in the data.

Overall, Pronto Xi’s Advanced Forecast provides a sophisticated and flexible way to predict demand.