Forecasting – Copy history

In forecasting it is fair to say that most forecast models only sensibly apply to high volume materials and that for low volume materials (although specific models exist)more manual intensive forecasting practices apply. A lot of customers prefer to use historical data one on one for the future predictions: May 2008 – 120 boxes sold hence May 2009 -120 boxes sold, June 2008 – nothing sold hence June 2009 also nothing sold, and so on. In a lot of situations it is desirable to manually adjust some of the forecast values. So if you wish to use last year’s actuals as your forecast for the upcoming year you can do the following:

This method can be applied in SOP/Flexible Planning and Material Forecasting. Take the following steps:

1. Choose (Winter’s) Seasonal Model.

2. Use one season as your history (e.g. season = 12 months, historical periods = 12 months)

3. No further initialization periods

Using these settings the last year’s pattern will be copied to the next year.

In SOP/Flexible Planning there is also the option ‘Copy history’. This will copy the consumption values (goods issues that are consumption relevant) to the future. However, when you are using a custom forecast field in Flexible Planning like e.g. ‘Invoiced quantities’ you are not interested in goods issues. You want to copy the ‘Invoiced quantities’ actuals. The method above then fits your requirement.

Find below how you can set the parameters in Flexible Planning in your forecast profile (MC35):

Forecast profile settings in MC35

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3. Distribution of Planned Independent Requirements in MRP
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