| Oracle® Retail Assortment Planning Implementation Guide Release 14.1 E55310-01 |
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| Oracle® Retail Assortment Planning Implementation Guide Release 14.1 E55310-01 |
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This chapter describes the overall flow of data among the Fashion Planning Bundle applications.
For information about script integration for the Fashion Planning Bundle, see Chapter 6.
This section describes the integration between solutions within the Fashion Planning Bundle. It does not describe external integrations.
The Fashion Planning Bundle is a full-suite planning solution for fashion retailers that integrates the following applications: Item Planning (IP), Item Planning Configured for Clearance Optimization Engine (IP COE), Assortment Planning (AP), Merchandise Financial Planning (MFP), and Size Profile Optimization (SPO).
Figure 5-1 shows the conceptual overview of the integration of these products.
This solution supports data sharing among these applications. Note that the data sharing functionality is not dependent on the presence of all these applications. The defined data sharing between any of the applications works for the entire suite as well as for a subset of the applications.
These descriptions explain the each of the data flows in Figure 5-1.
The following data is imported from SPO to AP:
Store-level size profiles (current and archived versions) with corresponding escalation levels
Store-clustered size profiles
Prepack definition configuration at style-color/size/prepack-ID and prepack validity periods at prepack-ID week
The size profiles are used by AP to obtain more detailed buy plans at style-color/size or prepack per store per receipt week. The prepack optimization module of SPO addresses the optimization of not only the number of units within a pack, but also the size ratios for each style-color within the pack. This enables the product to be tailored to the consumer selling patterns at each specific location.
SPO can group stores based on historical data into clusters, and these clusters can be used as a basis for creating prepacks.
For more information on SPO, see the Oracle Retail Size Profile Optimization documentation.
The following data is exported from AP to IP and an allocation application:
Buy plan
AP sends the buy plan to IP and the allocation application. The allocation application can use the sales plan or receipt plan created by AP to determine what inventory is allocated to stores. IP uses the pre-buying period assortment plan to track the performance of items during the buying period and to provide a framework to respond accordingly.
The following data is exported from IP to MFP:
Item plan
Approved data is exported from IP and loaded into MFP at the subclass level. The aggregation takes place within IP when exporting. Only the plans that have been approved since the last export in IP are imported into MFP.
MFP users can review and reconcile their merchandise financial plans (which are planned at the subclass level) to the approved item plans from IP.
The following data is exported from MFP to IP:
MFP current and original plans
The current and original plans are used by IP to help with the creation of item plans.
The following data is exported from MFP to AP:
MFP current plans
MFP current plans are critical inputs into the AP process. They define the financial goals for that buying period. AP uses these plans as targets to determine the number of options it should carry, the number of weeks it should carry them, and the amount of markdown it can afford in order to meet the targets for sales and gross margin.
Figure 5-2 shows the applications and data flow that are part of the Fashion Planning Bundle.
The applications shown in the diagram are in the following categories:
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Note: Full data transfers from the execution applications are not part of the Fashion Planning Bundle integration. They are included in the diagram to illustrate that historical data needs to be obtained from applications outside the applications included in the Fashion Planning Bundle. |
The execution applications provide the foundation and historical data that is input to the optimization applications.
A data warehouse application provides the initial load of sales and inventory data.
A merchandising application provides the daily and weekly data updates, or deltas, of the sales and inventory data. It provides data updates of master information such as styles, prices, stores, and so on.
The optimization applications take the foundation and historical data and produce size and markdown recommendations that are used by the planning applications.
SPO creates profiles of the optimal size distribution by both merchandise category and store. This gives insight into consumer demand patterns by size. These size profiles feed into AP.
For more information on SPO, see the Oracle Retail Size Profile Optimization documentation. For more information on AP, see the Oracle Retail Assortment Planning documentation.
COE provides markdown recommendations and forecasts that enable retailers to make informed markdown decisions. What-if data feeds back into COE from IP. COE is only available with IP configured for COE.
For more information on COE, see the Oracle Retail Clearance Optimization Engine documentation. For more information on IP, see the Oracle Retail Item Planning documentation.
The planning applications take data from the optimization applications and create plans for the retailer.
AP creates buy plans for the retailer based on size profiles from SPO and the subclass plans from MFP. The buy plans feeds into IP.
IP takes the buy plan from AP and the subclass plan from MFP to create an item plan. When configured for COE, markdown data from COE is also used. IP output feeds back into MFP. What-if data feeds back into COE to create new markdown plans.
MFP takes data from IP which is consulted when creating the subclass plan in MFP. Based on financial goals, the subclass plans determine how much merchandise should be available in a store in order to meet the goals. Subclass plans are fed into AP and IP.
