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Inventory forecasting and replenishment modules (Inforem) is an application that tracks current demand, forecasts future demand, and develops recommended order quantities. Inforem has enjoyed a rich legacy through more than three decades of performance. Its highly scalable engine, user controls, and customizable interfaces have provided retailers, wholesalers, mass merchants, and grocers with the power and flexibility to routinely manage tens of millions of item/location records.
The i2 Solution: i2 Inforem
i2 Inforem is a comprehensive forecasting and replenishment solution for the top- and middle-tier retailer. Inforem is a mainframe-based application that runs in an MVS or zOS environment. There is also an AS/400 version.
Inforem does not replace the stock status and purchasing applications being used today. Rather, it is designed to work with and enhance them. It can help keep the right items in stock and balance two important but conflicting goals—maintaining a high level of service while holding down the cost of inventory.
The core of Inforem’s strength lies in the adaptive-smoothing technique used to track and maintain demand. The adaptive-smoothing technique, called Variable Response Smoothing, is more responsive in identifying item trends and maintaining an average rate of sale resulting in more accurate forecasts. Inforem also utilizes seasonal profiles to identify the peaks and valleys within the selling season. A profile allows the user to make adjustments to the seasonal indexes for bad weather, distribution problems, or to realign floating holidays to correctly reflect the upcoming selling season.
Recommended orders can be generated on an individual item basis, or for a group of items required to meet a minimum amount or vendor constraint. The entire process can be easily managed with a handful of parameters. Inforem supports up to 10 levels of parameter overrides providing greater flexibility to manage product by location.
The Inforem solution provides the rich set of capabilities required to precisely manage inventory at the distribution center or down to the store level.
Capabilities of i2 Inforem can include:
- Provides six forecasting and order-generation rules
- Specifies up to three constraints when generating group orders
- Supports minimums within minimums
- Provides ten user-defined levels of override capability
- Maintains an average rate of sales and forecast error at the lowest level of hierarchy
- Calculates safety stock dynamically based on the forecast error and user specified desired service level
- Uses date sensitive on-order quantities to accurately calculate lost sales and unavailable on-order
- Establishes truck loading controls
- Tracks the effectiveness of the forecast update process with four sets of exception flags
- Enables short-cycle forecasting and replenishment strategy
- Manages up to 13 weeks of historical data
- Enables online, interactive order rerun
- Provides user security and online access controls
Benefits of i2 Inforem can include:
- Improved inventory levels and increased turns
- Increased service levels
- Orders built to vendor minimums
- Truck loads built to business need
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