Process Global Forecast for Items with Different UOM's Across Organizations

A global forecast refers to a forecasting process where your organization focuses on managing the forecast on the customer and item dimensions and leaves the process to determine the fulfillment location to a later part of the planning cycle. In some instances, you may have different primary UOMs in various fulfillment locations. This update enhances the capability of the system and can now handle this situation. Data, such as, shipment history, is now normalized to a common UOM and when the forecast is distributed to the various fulfillment organizations, the process ensures that the organization level forecast is in the appropriate unit of measure.

Prior to this update, while planning global forecasts in Oracle Supply Planning it was mandated that an item should have same primary UOM in various fulfillment locations. With this update, you can generate and plan global forecasts without having to be concerned about the Unit of Measure for the item that you are forecasting for at the organizations that will fulfill this forecast.

A global forecast refers to a forecast that does not identify the organization that can fulfill it. The forecast at the global level may not necessarily be in same unit of measure in the organization that fulfills it. For example, in a global company, the forecast could be in kilograms for a product. However, the fulfillment location that fulfills the forecast may be fulfilling in pounds. This update ensures that the system automatically performs the necessary conversions so that the forecast is considered in the appropriate UOM at a selected global level.

In this update, a new parameter Global Forecast Validation Organization is introduced in the Organizations tab of Maintain Supply Network Model page. You can select any one of the organizations within a source system as the validation organization for global forecasts. Supply Planning considers the primary UOM defined for items in this organization as the UOM of global forecasts.

If the parameter Global Forecast Validation Organization is selected and one of the included demand schedules is a global demand schedule in a supply plan, then supply planning by default includes this organization in the list of planned organizations.

Global Forecast Validation Organization

The following is the high-level process flow:

• If the input demand schedule type is Demand, Supply Planning publishes the global forecast at the selected measure levels in the primary unit of measure of items as defined in the global forecast validation organization. For example, in a demand plan, if the forecast for an item is in Kilograms, and the primary UOM of same item is Pounds in global forecast validation organization, then supply plan converts and loads the forecast in Pounds for that item.
• For external sources, you need to load the global forecast for items in the unit of measure as defined in the global forecast validation organization.
• Sales orders are aggregated to the selected Ship-to consumption level, after converting the sales order quantities to global forecast validation organization UOM for respective items.
• Transfer order demands are also aggregated and converted to global forecast validation organization UOM for respective items. The key setups remain same as described in the feature Plan for Forecast Demand that Doesn't Identify a Fulfillment Organization.
• The global gross forecast is consumed at the selected Ship-to consumption level by sales orders and transfer order demands.
• Global net forecast is distributed to various shipment facilities for further planning. While distributing the forecast, Supply Planning converts the forecast quantity of an item to its respective shipment facility’s primary unit of measure.  This forecast distribution is based on the sourcing split percentages as defined in the sourcing rules attached to the forecast distribution assignment set.
• If none of the organization for a source system is selected as a global forecast validation organization, then no UOM conversion is performed, and it is assumed that the UOM is same across different fulfillment organizations for an item. This is the same as the behavior for global forecasts prior to this update.
• If an item is not part of the global forecast validation organization, in that case also, it is assumed that the UOM is same across different fulfillment organizations for that item and no UOM conversion is performed.
• You can also set the common attributes of an item such as rounding control or demand time fence in the global forecast validation organization. Supply planning looks at these attributes in the global forecast validation organization during forecast processing.

Use Case:

In this use case, consider three fulfillment organizations M1, M2, and M3 for item KB-SWITCH-T1. Following are the unit of measures for this item across fulfillment organizations:

Items

Organization M1 is selected as the global forecast validation organization in Maintain Supply Network Model page. The primary unit of measure of item KB-SWITCH-T1 is Each in organization M1.

Maintain Supply Network Model

A supply plan is created with demand plan as input demand schedule and a global forecast is generated at Item and Week measure levels as shown in the given screenshot. Global gross forecast is generated in Each unit of measure.

Global Gross Forecast

 Following are the sales orders at various fulfillment organizations:

 

Sales Orders

The picture after consumption of the global gross forecast is:

 

Global Forecast Consumption

In this case, the sales orders are aggregated to Item measure level in the UOM of global forecast validation organization. There are two sales orders on 1/7/30 of quantity 30 (UOM: Each) and 7 (UOM: Box of 10), in the organizations M1 and M3 respectively. These sales orders are rolled up to Item level after converting their quantities to Each UOM as (30*1 + 7*10) = 100. Similarly, there are four sales orders on 1/21/30 of quantities 50 Each, 0.6 Box of 10 and (100+20) Box of 5 in organizations M1, M3 and M2 respectively. These sales orders are aggregated to Item level with quantity as (50*1 + 0.6*10 + 120*5) =656.

These sales orders consume the global gross forecast. On 1/7/30, the aggregated sales orders consume the global gross forecast for quantity 100 and a global net forecast is generated of 12, 900 (13000-100). Similarly, on 1/21/30 the global gross forecast of 13000 is consumed by sales orders for quantity 656 and global net forecast is generated as 13000-656=12344.

After consumption, the global net forecast is distributed to the respective shipment facilities for further planning. This forecast distribution is based on the sourcing split percentages as defined in the sourcing rules attached to the forecast distribution assignment set. In this case, the global net forecast is distributed to shipment organizations M1, M2 and M3 in the ratio of 40%, 30% and 30% respectively.

Sourcing Rules

The global net forecast on 1/7/30 of quantity 12900 is distributed as 5160 (12900 * 0.4) to organization M1, 3870 (12900*0.3) to M2 and 3870 (12900*0.3) to organization M3. While distributing the forecasts, quantities are converted to the item’s primary unit of measure for respective shipment organization. In this case,

• net forecast in the organization M1 would be 5160*1=5160,
• net forecast in the organization M2 would be 3870/5=774 and,
• net forecast in the organization M3 would be 3870/10=387

 

Net Forecast After Distribution in a User Defined Pivot Table

Similarly net forecasts are computed for each bucket.

You can format the measure in a pivot table to view the data in global forecast validation organization UOM. You need to edit the measure under Formatting and select the unit of measure as Principal.

Viewing Data in Global Forecast Validation Organization UOM

Steps to Enable

You need to select one of the organizations within a source system as the Global Forecast Validation Organization. Navigate to the Organizations tab of Maintain Supply Network Model page, and then select the check box for Global Forecast Validation Organization for one of the organizations within a source system.

Tips And Considerations

• You can select only one organization within a source system as the global forecast validation organization.
• You can select any organization as the global forecast validation organization. It can be one of the shipment facilities or outside of it.
• You can assign only those items to the global forecast validation organization, whose unit of measures are different across shipment organizations.
• It is suggested to create a separate pivot table without an organization level and include measures, global gross forecast and global net forecast along with sales orders measure in Principal UOM. It helps understanding the global forecast consumption.
• This feature is supported for both unconstrained and constrained supply plans.
• This feature is supported for both Supply Planning and Demand and Supply Planning.

Key Resources

• Refer to the Update 25B feature Plan for Forecast Demand that Doesn't Identify a Fulfillment Organization.

Access Requirements

Users who are assigned a configured job role that contains these privileges can access this feature:

• Edit Plans (MSC_EDIT_PLANS_PRIV)
• Run Plan with Snapshot (MSC_RUN_PLAN_WITH_SNAPSHOT_PRIV)
• Monitor Supply Planning Work Area (MSC_MONITOR_SUPPLY_PLANNING_WORK_AREA_PRIV)

These privileges were available prior to this update