• Optimal, detailed planning of what should be replenished, where and when, with excellent visibility and traceability
• DRP (distribution requirement planning) to determine inventory requirementsin a multiple plant/warehouse environment
• Cover-time planning and simulation ensure premier service to your customers
• Detailed material and capacity planning for the short term
• Adaptable to different planning methods
• Allows direct order creation
• Graphical user interface turns data into information, improving analysis and accuracy

IBS Supply Planning is required to achieve well balanced warehousing in a multiple plant/warehouse environment, or if you are a manufacturer who needs to schedule material and resources against calculated demand figures. In those cases, this IBS solution is the best tool to help you decide what to stock, when – and where.

HOW IT WORKS WITH OTHER IBS MODULES
IBS Supply Planning runs together with the IBS Inventory Control module. As demand figures are the base for supply planning, it's also recommended to run IBS Supply Planning in conjunction with IBS Demand Planning and/or IBS Sales and Operations Planning. These modules offer a fully integrated, comprehensive planning and forecasting solution that includes demand forecast and capacity constraints analysis. This combined functionality can help you reduce overall inventory while meeting the expectations of your customers.

REAL-TIME REPLENISHMENT

IBS Supply Planning calculates which stock (on an item level) needs replenishment and where (on a warehouse level). It is decided on item level in combination with warehouse level if the item is to be included in a supply plan. Calculations take all relevant data into account, such as safety stock, stock on hand, demand history, current sales promotion profiles, purchase levels and service levels.

Only one Supply Plan is active at the same time, and this active version is considered when purchase suggestions are created or when MRP is run.

BUILT WITH USABILITY IN MIND
To quickly find the most urgent demand lines, you can sort all of them according to cover time, including a shortage code that defines the priority. This lets you determine if actual demand is based on real customer demand or just refilling of safety stock.

All planning periods are user-defined; for example, it's possible to define the nearest period as a week, the next period as two weeks and future periods as a month. It's easy to manually adjust the supply plan and to copy plans to new versions that can be used as simulation versions.

PRO-ACTIVE PLANNING WITH DRP
IBS Enterprise handles standard reorder point (ROP) replenishment with automatic purchase suggestions based on real-time inventory, sales history, lead-times and master data from all transactions.

For optimized Inventory Control on a hierarchy level, IBS Supply Planning can provide distribution replenishment planning (DRP) – in addition to ROP replenishment for fast-moving or volume goods. For each item segment, you can choose a replenishment structure (ROP or DRP) that best fits your operations.

DRP is plan-oriented, and by analyzing requirements per period into the future, you can identify all expected replenishment needs, from suppliers as well as internal supplies. Replenishment is calculated against real demand instead of reordering points: when dealing with expensive goods, or goods with long lead times, this method can provide considerable financial gain.

BALANCED PRODUCTION PLANNING
IBS Supply Planning lets you balance 'Assembly lines moving' with 'minimizing inventory on hand' for production planning. The IBS solution uses bill of material data, inventory data and capacity requirement to calculate requirements for materials.

FULLY INTEGRATED SYSTEM
IBS Supply Planning is a comprehensive, fully integrated solution, which means it can automatically perform interconnected or dependent tasks. The solution will, for example, recommend new and rescheduled orders as well as perform automatic rescheduling of scheduled assemblies, based on the availability of component and resources.

As a further benefit of system integration, the solution provides you with the Inventory, Purchasing, Manufacturing, and Shop Floor controls that you need to effectively communicate available-to-promise information between all departments and provide premier service to your customers.

The IBS solution is integrated with DRP to give you and all of your company's end-users excellent visibility, along with accurate traceability of calculated values.

FAST VISUAL RESULTS
To improve usability, IBS Supply Planning includes fields such as cover time and shortage codes. Together with an easy-to-use graphical user interface, these codes streamline the planning process with multiple windows and details that allow drill-down.

A supporting planner's workbench lets you view, manipulate and update planning data from different perspectives and diverse formats such as pie charts and other graphs, providing a clear overview of planning forecasts with simulations and analyses.