Item Card

• Chart
  • Original Sale
  • Adjusted Sale
  • Sale Forecast
  • Stock
  • Estimated Stock
  • Safety Stock
  • Minimum Stock Level
  • Selected Order
  • Undelivered
  • Stockout
  • Purchase Plan Calculated/Demand from Stores
• Grid
• Details
  • Item Info
  • Stock Info
  • Order Routes
  • Forecast Settings
  • Forecast Settings
  • Undelivered
• Labels
  • High Forecast Uncertainty
  • Seasonal
  • New Item
  • Risk of Stockout
  • Overstocked
  • High Importance
  • Low Importance

The figure below is called the Item Card and shows how historical data and future estimates are presented within the AGR system. This information can be seen graphically, in a grid, and all the extra details attached to each item. Historical data are to the left on the graph and future estimates are on the right.

Chart

The chart can be viewed in three different timescales:

• Months
• Weeks
• Days

To choose a timescale, go to the upper right corner and change the time setting. It is also possible to change how long period is shown for historical data and for the forecast by typing in the wanted period in the upper right corner. Note that this only changes the chart view and has no effect on how the forecast is calculated.

Original Sale

The Original Sale appears as a burgundy diamond. This point cannot be adjusted within the graph and lets the user know if some adjustments have been made to the Sale Adjusted bars.

Adjusted Sale

The Adjusted Sale is represented by orange bars, with the number of sold units on the vertical axis and the dates on the horizontal axis. These bars are adjustable and can be moved to show a higher or lower sale amount.

Sale Forecast

The Sale Forecast for the next periods is represented by yellow coloured bars on the right of the graph. The best-fit forecasting engine automatically chooses among five classes of forecasting models to satisfy most business forecasting requirements. The most relevant forecasting method is chosen for the product, depending on the nature of the product sales history and the amount of historical data available.

Stock

The historical inventory levels (Stock) are represented by a blue shaded area on the left side of the graph. The stock history in units is shown on the vertical axis and the horizontal axis shows the dates for each value.

Estimated Stock

The Estimated Stock is represented through the light blue shaded area on the right of the graph. This area shows for how long current stock is estimated to last and when possible stock out can occur.

Safety Stock

The Safety Stock for the future orders appears as a blue dotted line in the sale forecast. The safety stock is based on the service level, variation in sale and how well fitted the chosen model is. The difference between the sale forecast and the forecast uncertainty is the calculated safety stock. This difference is also determined by how predictable the product is in sale. The system will calculate low safety stock levels for predictable products and high safety stock levels for unpredictable products with large variations in sale, if those variations cannot be described by seasonal effects or special events.

To learn more about safety stock and read common questions regarding safety stock, see Inventory: 2.1.2 Safety Stock Calculation.

Minimum Stock Level

The Minimum Stock Level is represented by a purple line in the graph and shows the minimum amount of stock level that must be available in the warehouse or store (instead of 0).

Selected Order

Once you have submitted an order for a particular product, you can view that product graphically in the Orders tab. The Selected Order is represented on the graph by a magenta bar and appears on the date that it is supposed to be delivered.

Undelivered

Undelivered are orders that have been sent to NAV and are not delivered yet from the supplier.

Stockout

If you do not purchase any more of this item, this is the estimated date that you will experience a stock out.

Purchase Plan Calculated/Demand from Stores

This is the purchase plan that is calculated from the night before. This needs to be turned on by your consultant in order to see this in the item card.

To learn more about this, see Inventory: 2.1.1 Working with the Forecast.

Grid

Next to the Chart button in the upper left corner is a tab called Grid. All information found there is the same as can be seen on the chart, including historical information about the sale, estimated stock and forecast, and more.

Details

Next to the Chart and Grid tabs is a tab called Details. Information about each product can be found by clicking the Details button for that product. The information is divided into five categories, shown below:

• Item Info
• Stock Info
• Order Routes
• Order Logic Settings
• Forecast Settings
• Undelivered Orders

Item Info

This section contains basic information about the product, serving both as information for the user and as an input into the order logic calculation. The groups are dived into info and settings. Info is purely informational but settings has configurable information. This information is taken directly from product information in the ERP system or the global settings if no information is available in ERP system (see Settings). Information about columns in AX and NAV can be found in the corresponding Standard AX Connector Manual and Standard NAV Connector Manual.

The following list includes a short explanation for information found in basic info:

• ABC Grouping: The item’s ABC grouping, if applicable.
• Article no: Article number.
• Description: Description of the product from ERP.
• Image ID: Id of the image displayed in the item card.
• Item group Level 1: First group that the product is allocated to within ERP.
• Item group Level 1: Second group that the product is allocated to within ERP.
• Item Name: Name of the product.
• Location: Selected location for that product.
• Primary Vendor: The name of the primary vendor for product.
• Responsible: Person responsible for the product.
• Sale price: Sale price of the product.
• Volume: Volume of the product.
• Weight: Weight of the product.
• Sale price: Sale price of the product.
• Order frequency: How often an order is placed for a specific item.
• Size: Size of the product, if appropriate.
• Color: Color of the product, if appropriate.

Stock Info

• Stock: Total stock on hand for chosen product in that variant.
• Undelivered: Total for all open, undelivered orders for the specified product in the specified location.
• Wastage Days: Number of days, before expiring date, that stock should be excluded in inventory level.
• Expiring Stock: Shows the number of units of stock that has an expiry date.

Order Routes

For the chosen supplier(you can toggle between available suppliers in the header), the following data is listed below:

• Cost price: Cost price of the product.
• Lead time: Number of days it takes to get the product delivered. Days are counted from when supplier gets the order until the product arrives and can be counted as stock on hand.
• Min order Qty.: The minimum order quantity the supplier accepts (e.g. box, pallet).
• Order Multiple: Quantity per purchase unit, orders will be made in multiples of this number.
• Primary Route: True if this is the primary order route, otherwise false.
• Qty. pr. layer: How many units are per layer.
• Qty. on pallet: How many units are per pallet.
• Vendor: Name of the vendor ordered from.
• Vendor No: The vendor number.

Forecast Settings

• Additional Lead Time: Users have the option to add additional days to the base lead-time registered in the system. This is to adjust for potential delays on product delivery. In the drop down selection, a different supplier can be chosen if they are defined in ERP. Information is taken directly from ERP and viewed in the AGR module.
• Exclude Lost Sale: If there is product demand during a stock out situation, this option determines if the demand is considered lost or not. 0% meaning no sale is considered lost and 100% meaning all sale is considered lost.
• Order Coverage Days: The number of days to cover when an order is created. Order frequency is used to check if an order is needed, and if so, order coverage days is used. Useful to control cheap items with irregular demand.
• Max Stock: The max stock is only used when min-max is turned on within the order logic under 2. Settings. If a number is inputted in both min stock and max stock, the system will automatically order up to max stock (target stock) when the stock reaches or is below the min stock, without considering anything else, like forecast or safety stock. The order quantity will be the difference between max stock and current stock but if order multiple (qty per unit) or MOQ is registered, then the final order qty might become higher than the max stock number (so this is not an upper cap on orders qty or inventory level). There can be cases where it is practical to use the min-max method like new or slow-moving products, but it can be difficult to both find and maintain optimal min stock and max stock values. If using min-max method for some products, we recommend an exception report for items with min and max stock values where these values are compared to recent sales values.
• Min Stock: This can either be the min in store or reorder point in the min-max method. First, if we use this as min in store (for display models) or other location, then this number will become the minimum quantity of the product to be held in that location and added to the order calculation as extra safety stock to avoid empty shelves. The number in this field will become the new zero and the inventory should not go below this number so on top of this min stock number we will calculate forecast and safety stock like normally. Secondly, if you will add value to max stock field, this min stock will become the reorder point in the min-max order method. This means that when your stock of a certain product reaches or is below this minimum, it’s time to reorder and we order the difference between current stock and max stock, so Order Qty = Max stock – current stock.
• Minimum order multiple threshold: Calculated order quantity in an order proposal must exceed the percentage of the order multiple to be rounded up. Can be configured globally or for individual items. (Example: An item has order multiple = 10 and calculated quantity = 14 units, thus 40% of the next order multiple. With a 30% threshold, AGR will suggest 20 units but with a 50% threshold AGR will round down to 10 units).
• Order Frequency Days: Number of days between orders. If an order is placed for an item once a week the order frequency is 7. Used to calculate Order period (Lead time + Order Frequency).
• Special order item: Items that are considered special order item, are excluded from forecast and are expected to be handled manually.

Forecast Settings

• Confidence Factor: The confidence factor of the item. This is set in the AGR system.
• Event Model: The default event model considers the Easter holiday and how it does not fall on the same date every year, but rather adjusts the sales history to follow the model of the Easter timeline without focusing on the date. It is possible to create a new event model, for perhaps a similar holiday that doesn´t always fall on the same date, or to turn this default event model off if the Easter holiday in no way affects your business.
• Exclude from forecast: If yes the item will not receive a forecast.
• Forecast Type: Forecast type defines the base forecast in the system. Each item can be configured independently in the item card. If set to 1 then monthly data will be used as the base data for the forecast. If set to 2 then weekly data will be used.
• Forecast from date: The forecast period will start at this date.
• Forecast to date: The forecast period will end at this date.
• Sale on Saturdays: Non zero forecast on Saturdays.
• Sale on Sundays: Non zero forecast on Sundays.
• Skip to forecast date: The date historical data starts from. This is used if it has been decided by user to ignore some historical data prior to that date. This is done in some extreme cases when sales history for some time period is not reliable to use.

Undelivered

This is a list of all the undelivered of this item that is broken down by purchase order according to vendor.

Labels

The purpose of labels is to make important information about your product available and visible. This is to help you better identify both what kind of item you are looking at but also more importantly some labels will alert you that there is a possibility that an action needs to be taken. Items can have multiple labels or none. By clicking the label, AGR provides extra info about the item or the reason for the label.

High Forecast Uncertainty

Shows items with high forecast uncertainty which will introduce purchase order proposals that are likely to be over 400% off.

Goal: Demand management, review inaccurate demand forecasts and prevent high safety stock level.

Possible actions for this item:

• Look for high safety stock levels, consider the cost of keeping them vs the cost of a potential stock out.
• Correct the safety stock level via editing sales history or adjusting the confidence factor.

If recent demand pattern has changed, the forecast calculation period can be adjusted by using the field “Skip forecast to date” enter the start date you want the forecast calculation to build on.

Seasonal

Goal: Demand management, prevent high safety stock levels.

New Item

Goal/Purpose: Lifecycle management/item phase in process. Secure that items will be ordered and allocated if needed. When new products are introduced, demand must be estimated, without the help of historical sales data.

Risk of Stockout

Items that are already or about to go out of stock. Read more about the risk of stockout definition.

Goal/Purpose: Re-order the goods to avoid or minimize the stock out period.

Overstocked

Read more about the overstocked definition.

Possible actions for this item:

• Reduce stock: lower order sizes and order frequency.
• Clear stock: run a promotion or put items on discount.
• Check with supplier if possible to return some stock and receive credit.
• Analyze the root cause of the overstock.
• Is the sale history data reflecting forecast going forward or should these items be subjectively planned as well?
• Are users adjusting the order proposal frequently?

High Importance

Based on ABC calculations.

Low Importance

Based on ABC calculations.