According to the vendor, the update allows planners to work more effectively with very large databases, while improving forecasting for complex bills of materials. New forecast-scheduling capabilities automate key functions and allow them to run unattended as background tasks. The change speeds up operations such as database saving and hierarchy reconciliation, Smart Software said. In addition, the company has made enhancements to the tool's exception-reporting features. Users can now choose to extract data for only those items whose values are outside specified norms. At the same time, SmartForecasts has expanded the number of options for file exports in the export modules. Users can export data in several additional output formats, making it easier to provide results in the formats that are required for enterprise resource planning (ERP) import. For bill-of-material forecasting, planners can forecast demand at finished-goods levels, and automatically derive the component demand history and related forecasts. The cloud-based version of SmartForecasts, SFCloud, installs upgrades and fixes automatically, manages the infrastructure for the customer, and provides security features. SFCloud helps demand planners to handle large data sets, sales seasonability, promotions, new and aging products, multi-dimensional hierarchies, bills of materials, and service parts and capital goods with intermittent demand.
