Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

The Summary in Brief

The retail store has been disconnected from planning the
supply chain, even though the majority of planning
problems can only be addressed at store level. For
example, retail out-of-stocks are a major problem for
retailers and their trading partners, yet no substantial
progress has been made on this front in the last 20 years.
Planning the retail supply chain must start at store level.
By starting at the store and producing forecasts of
consumer demand, all other demands in the supply chain
can be calculated. The result is order-of-magnitude
improvements in reducing out of stocks and improving
inventory performance and profitability for all members of
the extended retail supply chain.
Retailers and their trading partners can increase
profitability by 1-6% of top line sales by using Flowcasting
to plan the retail supply chain!

What Youll Learn in this Executive Summary

A forecast of store-level consumer demand is the only forecast that any retail supply chain
needs. This forecast is easily translated into demand, supply and inventory projections for all
other partners in the supply chain. There will be no need for suppliers to forecast their
upstream customers demands.

A number of supply chain planning problems are resolved, or significantly improved, using
Flowcasting. These include: virtually eliminating retail out-of-stocks (even during promotions),
minimizing seasonal inventory carryover and flawlessly executing on assortment, operational
and financial planning.

Flowcasting provides a single set of numbers, or a single version of the truth, to which all
supply chain partners can plan. Flowcasting translates consumer demand forecasts into
demand projections, manpower and equipment requirements, capacity requirements and
financial plans for all trading partners.

Flowcasting allows people to work by exception and see the future. People can identify
problems before they occur and take action to resolve them before they happen.

Flowcasting ensures that retailers and their trading partners are ultra-competitive. Results to
date have proven that using Flowcasting retailers and their trading partners can improve
bottom line performance by 1-6%.

The success of Flowcasting is dependent on people and process. People make the
Flowcasting process work. The more sustained effort you invest in education, training, process
design and integration, the better will be your results.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Section 1: The Need for Flowcasting

Starting at Store Level

The retail store is often considered the weakest link in the retail supply chain a notion
supported by numerous surveys conducted over the past 10 to 15 years regarding out-ofstocks.

Retail store out-of-stocks (usually in the 5 percent to 8 percent range) are indeed much
worse than the percentage of out-of-stocks that occur elsewhere across retail supply
chains. Even worse, those numbers balloon to almost 15% during promotions.

The nodes in a retail supply chain are highly interdependent. And when theyre managed
as such, the benefits that accrue to the trading partner are staggering in terms of reducing
costs and improving customer service two keys in winning todays retail race.

Forecasting Today Every Node for Itself

Todays forecasting happens everywhere, but where it really counts at store level.
Consider the following chart, which outlines the many functions and types of forecasts
that retailers do today:

Who is Forecasting

What Theyre Forecasting

Top
Management

Sales and
Marketing

Stores

Distribution

Finance

Revenues

Marketing plans

Sales

Transportation

Revenues

Profits

Sales plans

Manpower

Warehousing

Profits

Capital
expenditures

Promotions

Inventories

Receiving

Cash flow

Earnings per
share

New products

Space plans

Shipping

New stores

Receiving

Customer
service

Store closings

Shipping

Manpower

New products

Inventories
New equipment

Figure 1: Retailers functional forecasting activities.

Clearly, retailers spend a significant amount of time and effort on forecasting activities.
The same is true for manufacturers and wholesalers. Since the retail supply chain is not
linked, its every node for itself everyone is forecasting.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

The result of this forecast-everywhere-but-where-it-counts approach is that forecast

performance has actually worsened over time:
o

Low forecast accuracy was one of the key findings in a recent Grocery
Manufacturers of America study by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. Errors
at the national, monthly item-level - measured as mean absolute percentage error
(MAPE) - were 23 percent in 1996 and 31 percent in 1999. In 2002, the error rate
had increased - to 34 percent on a national, monthly level and 44 percent on a
shipping location level.

How can this be? Major investments in new forecasting practices and technology
over a sustained time period, and its getting worse.

Dependent Demand

Years ago in the auto industry, people realized that once you forecasted how many of a
particular car model you would assemble and then sell, you could easily calculate the
demand for tires, steering wheels, hubcaps and a variety of other parts. These
component level forecasts were based on dependent demand that is, they depended
entirely on the demand for finished cars.

The concept of dependent demand is important in retail planning as well. Consider the
supply chain shown in Figure 2. At every node of this distribution channel, a
customer/supplier relationship has been created. For example, the factory has one
customer, MDC1. MDC1 plays a dual roleit is the customer of the factory and the
supplier to RDC1 and RDC2. RDCs 1 and 2 also play dual roles; each is a customer of
MDC1 and each is a supplier to a specific number of stores (two each in this example).

Store 108

Store 602

Store 760

RDC1

Store 770

RDC2

MDC1

Factory

Figure 2: Dependent demand in a retail supply chain.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

When store 108 needs products, it orders from RDC1. When RDC1 needs products it will
order from MDC1. The product demand that RDC1 experiences will always be generated
by stores 108 and 602. In other words the demand on RDC1 is dependent on the needs

of stores 108 and 602.

Another way to look at this distribution channel is to think of the way products will
normally flow from factories to store shelves. Once you have forecasted what consumers
will buy at the store level, you can calculate the demand flow through every node and
trading partner within this distribution network. And this makes perfect sense. After all, we
build distribution centers to serve the demands of other DCs and stores. So why not have
forecasting and planning processes and systems follow in the same path that support the
way we actually do business?

The Power of One (Forecast)

Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) has been used in manufacturing to manage

inventories for decades. Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) applied the same
principles to the management of distribution inventories, resulting in significant
improvements in fill rate and inventory turns.

Flowcasting extends this thinking to the retail store the place where the information flow
starts and product flow ends thereby closing the supply chain loop with a common
process for all nodes.

The solution is simple and intuitive first, create a model of total supply chain from the
factory to the store shelf inside the same system (see the picture below), then make a
forecast for what consumers are going to buy, item by item and store by store. With a
clear picture of demand at the ultimate point of sale, schedule all upstream supply nodes
to meet demand. The calculated supply schedules are just basic math using DRP logic at
every location, including each store.

As shown in Figure 3, forecasting only needs to happen at the final point of sale, the retail
store. The calculated demand at each level, from retail stores through the suppliers
factories, is the one set of numbers that can be converted into meaningful units within
each functional area of the supply chain.

Retail
Store

Retail
DC

Manufacturer
DC

Manufacturer
Plant

Raw Material
Supplier

Calculate
Forecast
Figure 3: One sales forecast only at store level.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Why is this Better?

Forecasting at store level and calculating dependent demand throughout the extended
retail supply chain is far superior to todays approaches since:
o

Everyone is focused on consumer demand and can collaborate on developing

the best possible forecast of consumer demand

It can eliminate all forecasting happening today at the DC level, Wholesale level
and at the Manufacturing level

Forecasting at the distribution center level actually introduces a significant source

of error: store-level inventory levels.
If the stores have too much inventory, any RDC level statistical forecast
based either on aggregate sales history or warehouse withdrawals will
yield forecasts that are larger than what is actually needed. The result is
even more excess inventory. If the stores don't have enough inventories,
any RDC level statistical forecast based on the aggregate sales history or
warehouse withdrawals will generate a forecast that is too low, resulting
in out-of-stocks.

It factors in store-level inventories precisely where they count: at the store level
plan. These include store on-hand balance, shelf resets, delivery schedules,
minimum shipping quantities, supplier ordering rule changes, product phase
in/phase out, and so on.
Consider Figure 4 which shows the sum of the POS forecast for a
product at a number of stores supported by a retail DC, as well as the
projected demand (dependant demand calculation) on the distribution
center from the same stores. It clearly shows the effect of one of these
factors: inventory imbalances at store-level.

30
25

POS Forecast

20
15
10
5
Dependent Demand

0
TIME

Figure 4: POS forecast compared to dependent demand forecast.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

The solid line is the sum of the POS forecasts for the more than 100 stores supported by
this distribution center. The dotted line is dependent demand that the distribution center
will experience once store level inventories are taken into account. Notice that in the first
week, the dotted line is significant as the stores that are below the minimum display
quantities are brought up to the minimum.

The differences between the solid and dotted lines indicate the degree of error that can
exist between the POS forecasts and an accurate orders forecast (what a retailer will buy
from suppliers). The typical orders forecast resembles the solid line, while the orders
forecasts we are proposing would resemble the dotted line.

Section 2: How it Works

The Flowcasting Concept

Flowcasting starts at the head of the retail supply chain (the store) by forecasting what
consumers will buy each day over the forecast period typically one full year to capture
the entire business cycle. It calculates dependent demand to predict how much inventory
RDCs must ship in the stores, and when specified quantities of product must arrive in
order to meet consumer demand over the entire forecast horizon not just the next order.
Flowcasting repeats this process for every supply chain node that a product will flow
through on its way from the factory floor to the retail store shelf.

Figure 5 shows the power of this approach within the first two nodes of a retail supply
chain (for simplicity, only the first 8 days of the 52-week planning horizon are shown).
Outflow

Outflow

Store 1

Store 2

Th

Sa

Su

Th

Sa

Su

Forecast

Forecast

10

10

10

10

10

10

10

10

Proj On Hand

22

15

20

25

18

23

16

21

Proj On Hand

40

30

20

34

24

38

28

42

In-Transit

24

12

12

In-Transit
Plan Arrivals

12

12

Plan Arrivals

Inflow

24

24

24

Inflow

Outflow
Retail
DC
M

Forecast
Proj On Hand

60

12

36

48

60

Th

Sa

36
60

72

Su

36
72

36

36

In-Transit
Plan Arrivals

48

48

Inflow

Figure 5: Flow of products in and out of retail stores and DCs.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

The ability to flowcast the inflow and outflow of products across each node enables the
translation of information into the various languages of the key functional areas within a
retail company.

For example, planned receipts (into a store or RDC) can be converted to receiving hours,
in order to plan receiving capacity. The capacity plan for receiving can also be expressed
in terms of the number of trucks that need to be received in a given retail store or RDC,
thereby transforming the typical appointment system into a forward looking system in
which valid delivery dates can be stated on planned purchases before orders and
schedules are sent to suppliers. By using this approach, suppliers would no longer have
to call in for appointments before making a delivery Flowcasting creates a receiving
capacity plan for the future inbound flow of traffic and can be used to match daily
receiving capacity before sending out purchase orders.

The output from Flowcasting can also be used to make financial projections of planned
product receipts from suppliers in dollars, by week, by month, or one year into the future.
These projections become excellent input for cash flow planning purposes. Companies
can even take the projected product receipts from suppliers and offset them by their
payment terms, so as to predict the amount of accounts payable that product purchases
will represent.

Projected inventory levels can be converted to projected inventory investment in the

currency of choice. The projected inventories can also be converted into cases and
pallets in order to calculate how much warehousing space will be needed.

Since information is generated from item/store level consumer sales forecasts and is
time-phased a year out, it drives every key function in a retail company. In other words,
the consumer sales forecast becomes a universal set of numbers that can be easily
trained to speak the various functional languages of the company.

To flowcast any retail supply chain, the process would start with daily requirements at the
retail store. Once those requirements are known, the entire retail supply chain can be
synchronized to meet those needs. As a result, ordering and delivery requirements to
retail stores will be completely visible to supply chain participants that manufacturer and
distribute those products. Trading partners will know the specific retail store needs today,
tomorrow, next week and well into the future. The same visibility will apply to all other
nodes in the supply chain. As a result, when conditions change (selling over or under
forecasts), product flow requirements can be recalculated daily and communicated to
supply chain participants.

What are the Benefits?

For Retailers

Retail distribution centers would become, over time, cross-docking and repackaging
facilities. Products would arrive from supply sources and would then be repackaged when
necessary in units of weekly store sales. Initially, most products would be cross-docked
and inventory turn rates in RDCs would rise to 50 or more annually. Repackaging
operation costs would be shared among supply chain trading partners. Over time, fewer
retail DCs would be required.

Retail stores would receive deliveries so that trucks would be unloaded in shelf placement
sequence. Since repackaging would be done in RDCs (or in 3PL provider facilities), retail

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

stores would be able to free up significant shelf space that management could use to
fulfill other consumer needs. Backroom inventories would become a thing of the past.
Retail store sales would increase 2 to 8 percent, while store inventory turns, over time,
could rise to 50 or more annually depending on products selling velocities.

Retailers would no longer need separate forecasting and replenishment systems for their
stores and RDCs. One common system would manage inventory in both stores and
RDCs and interface with suppliers on a daily basis.

The internal theft portion of product shrink would be reduced by at least 50 percent due to
the hourly and up to the minute visibility of what is on the shelf, what is sold, and what is
coming into the store.

One common system would span cross-organizational boundaries. Store operations,

merchandising, buying, category management, distribution, finance and management
would all be working from one set of numbers.

For Wholesalers

Flowcasting would enable wholesalers to become value-added partners for their

manufacturing suppliers and retailing customers. Their businesses would transform as
they become professional cross-dockers and repackagers for those retailers or
manufacturers that cannot or do not want to take on those activities themselves.

Wholesalers would only need to hold a few days of inventory, compared to the volumes
they carry today.

Wholesalers would require far less warehousing space. Many of their current activities in
purchasing, distributing, marketing and selling would be significantly reduced and, in
some cases, eliminated.

For Manufacturers

A manufacturers way of doing business would change completely. The timeframe for the
change would depend on the size of their retail and wholesale customers, and how
rapidly those customers adopt Flowcasting. Over time, as more retailers adopt
Flowcasting, the manufacturer would gradually convert from a manufacture-to-stock
(MTS) strategy to a manufacture-to-order (MTO) strategy for most of their business, and
reap all the economic and productivity benefits that derive from the MTO approach. Gone
would be the uncertainty of demand, associated safety stocks, and associated
warehousing and operating costs as well as last minute and very costly production
schedule changes.

For All Trading Partners

Supply chain-wide inventory investment would drop significantly for those retail supply
chain partners that adopt the Flowcasting way of doing business. We predict that once
critical mass is achieved, finished goods inventories in the global consumer goods
industry would drop by two thirds. These inventories, which now range from 80 to 120
days on-hand in the consumer goods industry, would drop to 30 to 45 days on-hand,
which would represent a substantial opportunity to reduce costs, product obsolescence,
and returns.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Section 3: Solving Supply Chain Problems, Realizing Opportunities

Flowcasting provides unprecedented opportunities to solve problems or take advantage of supply
chain opportunities as summarized below:
Promotional Planning

Numerous studies have concluded that most retail out-of-stocks are the result of poor
store ordering and an unresponsive supply chain, especially during promotions. Since the
Flowcasting process plans at store level and resynchronizes the entire retail supply chain
daily based on whats happening at store level, these root causes are eliminated.

In most promotions, some stores sell more than expected while others sell less. With
Flowcasting, only a portion of the inventory is positioned at the store level prior to the
promotion. This provides opportunities for re-supplying stores that need more inventory
during the promotion.

At the manufacturers end of the supply chain, Flowcasting provides production

schedulers with unprecedented visibility into the needs of their customers. They can see
changes in demand at the plant only a day or two into the promotion and can adjust their
production to provide the right amount of product to the DCs that need it.

Flowcasting naturally links all nodes in the supply chain. This takes the guesswork out of
determining how much to produce and where to deploy product during promotions. In the
following diagram the 2 stores provide demand projections for the RDC, the RDC
provides demand projections for the MDC, and so on until the supply chain is linked.

Figure 6: Natural cascade of dependent demand for a planned promotion.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Assortment Planning

All products have a lifecycle. Flowcasting provides the ability to translate the lifecycle into
actionable information for all trading partners.

The Flowcasting process provides the visibility required to effectively introduce new
products to the marketplace. Store-level forecasts and inventory projections give planners
the ability to see the impact of their decisions long before they will occur. This provides all
trading partners, through their Flowcasting teams, with the opportunity to create, agree to,
and execute a plan.

Product-level visibility can be converted into capacity requirements to ensure that initial
store distributions of new products will not create a bottleneck anywhere within the
extended retail supply chain. In the event they do, decisions can be taken in advance to
avoid constraints.

Store level visibility and the ability to continuously recalculate store-by-store run-out dates
of an existing product make it far easier to introduce a new product while replacing an old
one

Since the entire supply chain is linked by a series of cascading planned orders
(dependent demand), all trading partners have advance notice of product introductions
and discontinuations and the impact that these events will have on their operations.

Seasonal Planning

Dependent demand communicated to trading partners will reflect when a season starts
and ends.

Because the Flowcasting planning horizon is a full year into the future, next years sales,
inventory and merchandising plans can be completely set up and ready to execute
immediately after the previous seasons post mortem review.

Future visibility regarding inventory projections provides people with the information they
need to make good decisions regarding end of season inventory levels. For example,
Figure 7 highlights to a planner that 2 items in store 108 will have significant end of
season carryover inventory (expressed in future days of supply) unless action is taken:

Store 108

Days of Supply by Week

1

10

...

52

Shovel 1

21

14

21

14

180

171

165

158

...

21

Shovel 2

21

14

21

14

21

14

...

Shovel 3

21

14

21

14

190

183

180

180

...

Figure 7: Projected inventory coverage in days of supply for three shovels at store 108.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Operational Planning
The Flowcasting process provides projections of demand, inventory, and supply at the
most granular level (by store by product). This information can be multiplied by product
factors (such as cube and weight) to provide projections that are useful to operations
planners.

The Flowcasting process provides both the short- and long-term information required to
improve operational planning. Since the process is a simulation of what is going to
happen in the future, this information can be used for capacity and transportation
planning. Consider the diagram in Figure 8.

Quantity
(Cube, Weight, Units, Hours, etc.)

Time

Figure 8: Visibility of required capacity provided by Flowcasting.

In the example above, the chart could represent a number of different views of capacity
including:
o Cube to be received
o Hours needed to unload
o Hours needed to put away product
o Weight to be shipped between a particular source and destination
o Inventory space required at any location
o Numbers of trucks to be received
Operational planners cannot work in isolation from other departments and other
companies (e.g., suppliers). Rather, everyone must work together and arrive at solutions
that provide top-notch service and reduce costs. Since people have long term projections
of product flows and associated capacities, exceptions can be highlighted and actions
taken to resolve them before they occur.

Since the Flowcasting process provides accurate projections, it can be used to develop
transportation freight budgets, negotiate freight rates, and justify the purchase of
equipment.

Flowcasting will enable the deployment of new distribution methods. The new methods
will be used to avoid potential problems and reduce costs.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Financial Planning and Budgeting

The Flowcasting process provides the capability to do store-level business planning and
calculates all other demand and supply projections throughout the extended retail supply
chain. This makes it possible to conduct business planning at all levels by simply
converting planned product flows into financial flows. The result benefits the entire supply
by providing a single set of numbers for planning.

Flowcasting makes it possible to use supplier scheduling in retail environments since

accurate projections of future purchases, inventory levels, and sales are provided, a year
into the future.

Flowcasting facilitates and improves category management processes. With Flowcasting,

projections of sales and inventory can be aggregated by category, division, or whatever
aggregate display is needed.

Retail Sales & Operations Planning (RS&OP) will emerge as an improved way to gain
control of the business. Like its manufacturing counterpart, Sales & Operations Planning,
Retail S&OP will help ensure that everyone in retail is on the same page. Figure 9
depicts a potential template for Retail Sales & Operations Planning:

Sales & Operations Planning

All numbers in 000s
Time periods = months
Sales

-2

-1

Curr

+1

+2

+3

Plan

240

250

260

270

250

240

240

Actual

235

252

261

268

Difference

(5)

+2

+1

(5)

(3)

(2)

-3

-2

-1

Curr

+1

+2

+3

Plan

260

260

260

260

260

260

260

Actual

258

266

260

Difference

(2)

+6

(2)

+4

+4

-3

-2

-1

Curr

+1

+2

+3

740

750

760

750

740

730

730

735

747

758

753

(5)

(3)

(2)

Cumulative Difference

Purchases

Cumulative Difference

Inventory
Plan
Actual

740

Difference

Today

-3

260

Figure 9: Potential template for Retail Sales & Operations Planning.

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Flowcasting the Retail Supply Chain Executive Summary

By Andr Martin, Mike Doherty and Jeff Harrop

Making it Happen: Implementing Flowcasting

In a Flowcasting world people, not computers, are responsible - and rightly held
accountable for sales, in-stocks on the shelf, inventory investment, and operating costs.
Therefore, people must be in total control. When a store or retail DC goes out of stock, no
one can blame the computer; its knowledgeable people who know the products, the
consumers, suppliers that make the decisions.

In a Flowcasting world, hardware and software are to Flowcasting teams what drills,
hammers and saws are to the carpenter, a set of tools to get the job done. And its people
who will ultimately solve business problems. Show people how to get accurate
foundational data, and give them the necessary education and training they need, and
they will generate valid models that will enable others to do their job in a superior way.

Flowcasting is thus a mix of human judgment and sophisticated technology. And given
that it represents a sea change in the way a company does business with its trading
partners, a formal implementation process is necessary to ensure a success. Figure 10
outlines fourteen basic steps for implementing Flowcasting.

A Basic Flowcasting Implementation Plan

Audit
Assessment I

Initial
Education

Flowcasting Teams

Project Initiator
Organization

Education/Consulting

Business Process Redesign

Performance
Goals

Demand
Management
Data Integrity

Software

Performance
Measurements

Conference
Room Pilot &
Live Pilot

Roll-out

Audit
Assessment II

Figure 10: The 14 basic steps of a Flowcasting implementation plan

This approach is based on a proven approach that has successfully stood the test of time
in retail, wholesale, and manufacturing companies. If you follow it, youll maximize your
chances of gaining unprecedented visibility into your supply chain from store shelf to the
factory floor. To be sure, implementing Flowcasting is a major undertaking. But the
benefits far outweigh costs of transforming your retail supply chain from a series of
disconnected islands to a seamlessly integrated entity driven by a single forecast.

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