Workflow

The IPO-IO workflow starts with the completion of a scheduled run or by the manual creation of a new run. Once a run has completed, you can view the recommendations of the run or the time-phased inventory plan..

Your core primary tasks are

  • Reviewing optimized replenishment policies that have not met automatic approval rules.
  • Analyze Alerts to determine if order adjustments are required for today’s orders. Then future inventory issues are analyzed to determine necessary policy adjustments.
  • Review and approve orders including rebalancing transfers.

Use the Inventory Planning Alerts view, Forecast Overview and Inventory Overview to support your analysis of the recommendations.

The IPO-IO UI workflow consists of the following:

  • Overview: This is the dashboard for the IPO-IO runs. In this tab, the user can see a list of all existing runs, along with details that describe each run.

    From the run overview table, the user can create a run, copy a run, open a run, or delete a run. When the user clicks on a successful run, it is opened in a new tab with three sub-tabs to show replenishment policies, rebalancing transfers, and PO and transfers, as well as a sub-tab to show the summary of inputs of the run. For a failed run, only the input summary sub-tab is displayed. To create a run, the user must specify the run scope, that is, the merchandise and location nodes for the run and the type of analysis to be performed.

  • Manage Recommendations: This is the main screen where the user can view, override, and approve different types of recommendations. This screen shows the recommendations for each product from the latest successful run. If the user approves a different recommendation (from another run in the run output screen), it will override the recommendation of latest successful run and will appear in the recommendations tab. This screen consists of five sections.

    • Overview. A calendar view that shows the summary of different type of recommendations and provides a link for the user to open and view the details of recommendations for each date.

    • Replenishment Policies. Used to review and approve replenishment policies.

    • Rebalancing Transfers. Used to review, override, and submit/approve rebalancing recommendations.

    • PO/Transfers. Used to review, override, and submit recommended PO and transfers. These include warehouse/supplier to store and warehouse/supplier to warehouse.

  • Inventory Overview: Used to view the inventory levels and the historical trend of the inventory at the item-location level.

  • Forecast Overview: Used to view the demand forecast of the item-locations and the historical trend of sales across all customers as well as for each customer segment.