Chapter 8
Plans
The AGR Planning Engine allows users to create demand plans and promotions at any level; business, division, department, category or item. Adjustments and changes are aggregated up or consolidated down the structure to have one visible demand plan for the entire business. Changes to the plans can furthermore be made top - down, middle - out or bottom - up. The planner ensures automatic execution of plans and promotions into the replenishment order cycle.
The AGR planning engine is built using data series, which is just compiled data over a period of time. The system shows standard data series that are available for all users and created during implementation. Data series can be organized per item number, like they are in the AGR, or they can be organized by store, date, etc. The planner can work on data series on numerous different levels, giving even more flexibility to the system. Standard data series that are available in the system are: Demand, Baseline Plan, Promotions, and Forecast. The Demand data series takes the statistical forecast (or from the baseline plan is data is there), plus promotions.
To find the planner in AGR, click on Plans in the menu bar. There you will see the planner command bar and the plans overview.
Information tips can be found all over the planner (and the AGR system as a whole) to give the user more information on a certain button or option. An example of such a tip can be seen above.
Best Practice Note: Any changes that are made to the baseline or the promotions within the planner are automatically uploaded to AGR. If you want to create a plan without changing the data within AGR, then you can create a new data series labelled Temporary Baseline, allowing you to change it and play around with it without changing the data. Once you have worked on the Temporary Baseline data series, are happy with it, and ready to change the data within AGR, you can go to Actions and copy the values from your temporary data series to the baseline. If you do not create a Temporary Baseline, but rather start working directly on the Baseline data series, and someone else from the company goes into AGR at the same time and creates an order, they might end up ordering what you are working on before you are finished, causing problems.