To make the most of your Demand Planning efforts with Recurrency, establishing standard workflows is key. These workflows ensure your time is spent efficiently and productively while driving meaningful results.
Our suggested Demand Planning workflows are designed to match the complexity of your items, helping you progressively build confidence in managing more intricate item-location pairs. Each suggested workflow offers distinct benefits to streamline your processes and improve your inventory health. Below are recommended approaches based on these factors.
Reviewing Recurrency Recommendations
To set Demand Pattern and Predictability Scores, click on the filter drop downs at the top of the Planning module, select your preferences and click apply.
Bulk Actioning
The workflows below progress from the lowest complexity to the highest. These groups are ideal for practicing bulk management, allowing you to efficiently process multiple item-location pairs while making small, targeted adjustments to inputs like safety stock if necessary.
To get started:
Apply Filters: Narrow your focus by filtering for specific product groups, ABC classes, or suppliers to make the workload more manageable.
Review and Refine: Aim to make minimal updates to inputs while primarily accepting Min/Max recommendations in bulk.
Sort and Prioritize: Use sorting tools to organize your review based on the unique needs of each group, ensuring you address the most critical items first.
Focus on Bulk: Push the recommendations in bulk, making any small tweaks to inputs only as needed.
💡 Note: Always apply the "Needs Review" filter in addition to the recommended filters for each group. This ensures you're focusing on items where adjustments to replenishment values are specifically recommended.
Simple High Demand Items 1
Filters: Very High/High Predictability & Smooth Demand Pattern.
Approach: Streamline the process by working in bulk.
Tips:
For lists exceeding 200 items, filter by suppliers or product groups to facilitate bulk reviews.
Review items collectively to save time and ensure consistency.
Narrow the list by filtering by suppliers, product groups, or other key attributes.
Push recommendations in bulk, making only minor adjustments where necessary.
If the list is extensive, focus on key suppliers or high-priority product groups first.
Simple High Demand Items 2
Filters:
Erratic, Sporadic, and Unstable Demand Patterns.
High/Very High Predictability.
Approach: Maintain a bulk workflow and get more confident making small updates as needed.
Tips:
Sort by Recommended Max, from lowest to highest prioritizing items where the recommended max is zero. Review these zeroed-out recommendations first to ensure accuracy.
Next, focus on items that have the highest recommendation Delta, sorting by Max Delta. Sort from highest % to lowest %, giving more attention to larger changes.
Push recommendations in bulk for the remaining items, adjusting safety stock or Min/Max as needed.
Medium Predictability Items
Filters:
Smooth, Erratic, Sporadic, and Unstable Demand Patterns.
Medium Predictability.
Approach: Focus on bulk actions while categorizing items by complexity. Build confidence by quickly identifying items that need input adjustments and addressing them efficiently.
Tips:
First, sort by Unit Cost (highest to lowest). Focus on more expensive items first, as they have the greatest impact on your inventory.
Note: The Unit Cost column is hidden by default. To unhide it, click the "Columns" icon on the Planning page and enable Unit Cost.
Sort by Max Delta (highest % to lowest %). Review items with the largest percentage increases in Max values next. These indicate where Recurrency is recommending the most significant replenishment adjustments.
Sort by Min Delta (lowest to highest). Ensure no items have recommendations that are too low by focusing on those with a Min Delta of -100%. This provides a quick and effective way to address potential gaps in your inventory.
No Demand Items
Filters: No Demand Demand Pattern. All Predictability Scores.
Approach: Items categorized as "No Demand" haven't been sold in the past 12 months or more. If Recurrency flags them as "Needs Review," it indicates that replenishment values are assigned despite the lack of recent sales history. Zero out the Min/Max values for these items (by accepting Recurrency recommendations) to align with their inactive sales status.
Tips:
For items that need to retain specific Min/Max values due to factors like customer agreements or other commitments, exclude these items for a set period. This ensures Recurrency can notify you when they require attention again, while sparing you unnecessary reviews in the meantime.
Managing by Exception
New Items
Filters: New Item Demand Pattern, All Predictability Scores.
Challenge: Lack of historical data makes forecasting difficult.
Recommended Actions:
Use Item Usage Inheritance to set temporary demand patterns.
If review is necessary, sort by Max Delta (highest % to lowest %) and prioritize items with significant changes.
Zero out Min/Max values or set custom Min/Max values.
If custom replenishment values are preferred, exclude these items from replenishment for 3-4 months until the system assigns a demand pattern.
Complex Items
Filters:
Smooth, Erratic, Sporadic, and Unstable Demand Patterns.
Low Predictability.
Approach: Focus on items with the highest potential impact on your inventory and costs.
Tips:
Unhide and Review Key Columns:
Ensure columns like Lead Time and Unit Cost are visible to provide essential context for decision-making.
Sort Strategically:
Sort by Max Recommended Delta (highest to lowest) to highlight items with significant changes in Max values.
Sort by Unit Cost to highlight expensive items most likely to have a high impact on your inventory.
Sort by Max Recommended Delta (lowest to highest) to highlight items Recurrency is recommending zeroing out. These are likely to require small updates to inputs.
Prioritize High-Impact Items:
Focus first on items that can significantly affect your inventory and cash flow, such as the ones described above.
Tackle Extremes First:
Adjust extreme values or anomalies before moving on to less critical items, ensuring your inventory is optimized efficiently.
Sparse Items
Filters: Sparse Demand Pattern, All Predictability Scores.
Approach: Sparse items are managed based on your organization’s Sparse Item Grid settings, not forecasts. Recurrency applies your preferences for how much to hold versus how often to replenish.
Tips:
Leverage Bulk Actions:
Once you understand the Sparse Item Grid settings, process items in bulk to save time and streamline decision-making.
Ignore Predictability Scores:
Predictability scores do not apply to Sparse items, as Recurrency isn’t forecasting their demand. Focus instead on alignment with your grid preferences.
Review individual items to ensure the grid settings are producing recommendations that align with your organizational goals.
Spot-Check Critical Items:
Filter for Potential Exceptions: Use filters like ABC Class, Product Groups, or Suppliers to isolate items that may need additional attention or adjustments.
Make Slight Adjustments Within the Grid: If you prefer to stay within the Sparse Item Grid but need minor tweaks, try overriding Lead Times. This can shift the item into a different square on the grid, allowing for refined recommendations without breaking the grid logic.
Override Recommendations as Needed: For items requiring significant changes, consider overriding the Min/Max values directly. If the item doesn’t need ongoing attention, exclude it for a set period to temporarily remove it from review while ensuring it resurfaces when appropriate.
By following these workflows, you can optimize your demand planning process, ensure accurate forecasting, and maintain efficient inventory management.
Adjusting Min/Max Recommendations
If you find that Min/Max recommendations need adjustment on an individual or group basis, there are several levers built in to Recurrency that you can explore to make these adjustments.
Below are some typical issues that users see along with recommended actions to take to counter them. We encourage you to try each of these when needed; Recurrency will learn from both your imported data and your manual actions taken in the platform.
Best Practices
Min and Max adjustments: If both Min and Max need to be adjusted, focus on Safety Stock or Lead Time as levers to modify the recommendations.
Min-only adjustments: Use the Order Cycle to adjust Min values, but remember this impacts all items under the supplier-location pair.
Max-only adjustments: Since Max values are determined by Economic Order Quantity settings, frequent issues with high Max values could signal a need for updates to these company-wide settings.
Adjustment Scenarios
1. Max Recommendation is Too High
Issue: Max recommendation is higher than necessary.
Action: Decrease the Safety Stock.
Impact: Lowering the Safety Stock will reduce both the Max and Min recommendations, optimizing inventory levels.
2. Max Recommendation is Too Low
Issue: Max recommendation is lower than required.
Action: Increase the Safety Stock.
Impact: Raising the safety stock will increase both the Max and Min recommendations, ensuring adequate stock availability.
💡 Note: For consistent Max issues, review the EOQ (Economic Order Quantity) settings, which apply company-wide. If Max values are consistently too high, it may indicate the EOQ settings need to be updated.
3. Lead Time Needs Updating
Issue: Lead time is outdated or incorrect based on supplier information.
Note: Overriding Lead Times should only be done in specific circumstances. For most cases, we recommend keeping Lead Times dynamic and utilizing Recurrency's Smart Lead Times to ensure accuracy and flexibility in your inventory recommendations.
Action: Override the lead time.
Impact: The lead time will remain overridden until manually switched back to Recurrency Smart settings. This adjustment can improve the accuracy of recommendations.
4. Mins Too High or Too Low
Issue: Min values are not aligned with your needs.
Action: Adjust the Order Cycle to impact only the Min values.
Decide whether to lower or raise the Min values at the supplier-location level.
Increase Order Cycles: This will increase Min values.
Decrease Order Cycles: This will decrease Min values.
For specific overrides that should not impact purchasing behavior, use the override order cycle option.
Impact: This adjustment changes only Min values, leaving the Max values unaffected.
5. Min/Max Overrides
Issue: Custom Min/Max values are needed for specific items temporarily or permanently.
Action: Accept a custom Min/Max and exclude the item from review for a set period (e.g., 1 month).
Use this option to ensure Recurrency brings the item back to your attention after the exclusion period.
Impact: The item will be excluded from the Needs Review list for the defined period, ensuring Recurrency brings it back to your attention when the exclusion expires.
By leveraging these adjustments, you can fine-tune your Min/Max recommendations to better meet your inventory management goals and respond effectively to operational changes.