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| Smart Software Ships SmartForecasts Version 8 Smart Software announces the release of Version 8 of its flagship product, SmartForecasts. This latest version boasts a number of significant features to meet the needs of demand and inventory planners in an increasingly complex planning environment. New features will enhance the ability of planners to quickly deliver accurate forecasts and inventory stocking estimates for thousands of product items, handle an expanded variety of forecasting situations, manage the day-to-day workflow of the forecasting process, and streamline the administration of SmartForecasts by providing improved connectivity to other corporate planning systems. SmartForecasts is a cross-industry solution for demand forecasting, demand planning, and inventory optimization. It integrates easily with host databases, such as Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM DB2, as well as ERP and SCM systems like Epicor, Adonix, and SAP. SmartForecasts contains award-winning, patented technology for forecasting hard-to-forecast items with intermittent, or "slow-moving", demand. This unique technology, which yields nearly 100 percent accurate estimates of inventory stocking requirements for any lead time and desired service level, is being used by scores of companies with service parts operations, as well as capital goods manufacturers in a variety of industries. SmartForecasts 8 contains many enhancements and new features, including the following: - A fully automated system for executing large forecasting jobs, allowing planners to customize forecasting parameters at the SKU level for thousands of product items and reduce forecasting tasks previously taking hours to complete, to just a few minutes. - The ability for planners to automate — again at the SKU level — the use of fixed or dynamic time frames for improving the accuracy and relevance of forecast results. - Expansion of "what-if" facilities to include a FreeStyle forecasting method, useful for forecasting new products and generating non-statistical forecast results. - The ability to reuse, combine and merge forecast projects in ways that better match specific corporate needs; for example, by merging a new forecast project with an existing one in order to combine forecasts of planned and unplanned demand for a spare parts operation. - Full automation of the top-down/bottom-up forecasting process for all product groups in a database using a new functionality for rolling up and rolling down data directly in SmartForecasts. - Significantly improved capabilities for managing data outliers, events and promotions. - Technical improvements to Smart's intermittent demand forecasting technology that increase forecast accuracy when creating scenarios of future demand over a lead time and improve estimates of desired inventory service levels. - New tools for controlling forecasting projects and managing the day-to-day workflow of forecast information. - Expanded functionality for assisting technical administrators in the integration, monitoring and maintenance of SmartForecasts database connections with host databases and other corporate planning systems. SmartForecasts 8 is also fully compatible with SmartCollaborator, Smart Software's application that provides web-based collaboration across the enterprise, utilizing feedback from remote users both inside and outside the corporation to foster consensus forecasting and better communications between planning groups. write your comments about the article :: © 2007 Computing News :: home page |