Solutions
Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning
DDMRP is the use of automatically adjusted inventory buffers for both finished goods and materials strategically positioned throughout the enterprise for efficient and predictable production and material replenishment that responds to changing end-item (finished good) demand.
In particular, demand-driven means the ability to respond to both:
Predictable Changes
- Seasonality
- Promotional events
- Opening/closing plants
- Product portfolio changes
Unpredictable Changes
- Sudden changes in demand
- Breakdowns in production resources
Conventional Approach
The classical approach de-couples demand planning, inventory optimization, production planning, and MRP. Therefore, demand changes need to be reflected in a sequence of planning re-runs, ending with the ERP-enabled MRP run to check material availability. In cases where material falls short to execute a production plan, multiple planners make manual adjustments to the inventory plan, the production plan and/or the material replenishment plan in order to respond to the changes in demand.
In dynamic and competitive markets, the classical serial approach falls short of matching the speed of business. The consequences usually involve continuous fire-fighting, shifting of priorities and expediting, with Excel being the primary mechanism to get to an executable plan which ends up not being totally responsive to the demand changes.
Solvoyo’s DDMRP solution is the integrated and automated way of coupling inventory optimization, production planning, and material planning in one shot. Thus, changes in demand can be reflected in material requirements at the speed of business and create production/replenishment plans that are always feasible (i.e., immediately implementable). Besides, MRP becomes an integral part of the production plan that takes into account capacity constraints and material availability simultaneously.
Why DDMRP with a digital platform?
In order to implement DDMRP, you need to have immediate access to demand/orders, inventory optimization parameters for both FG and materials, production capacity, bill-of-material (BOM), bill-of-process (BOP or recipes) and material availability data. This is usually possible with a digital platform that enables access to all required data as well as a concurrent optimization capability across the classical planning functions.
DDMRP still uses forecasts and orders but the lack of highly accurate short-term forecasts is covered by automated adjustments in inventory buffers across the supply chain. Over time, if the automated adjustments to the right buffers are efficient and effective, then the system responds to changes in demand with less nervousness (i.e., fewer peaks and valleys in inventory) in production and material replenishment. Of course, you can achieve the same “responsiveness” to changing demand by keeping much larger production capacity than you may need and/or much higher investment in FG and material inventory. However, this approach is expensive and not sustainable in many competitive markets.

Companies’ Role in DDMRP
DDMRP is a software-enabled solution for those companies which place value in quick and automated decision making. DDMRP cuts across multiple functions: demand planning, prioritized order fulfillment, inventory planning, production planning, and material planning. In order to implement DDMRP successfully, software is necessary but not sufficient.
Companies also need to:
- Make an internal transition
- Change their processes across these traditional silos
- Focus on cross-functional trust and
- Adopt common KPIs

“Demand planning is both art and science. Until Solvoyo entered our lives I think we managed it as too much of an art relying on our individual intuition backed up by the primitive science of 30 versions of the same spreadsheet. Now all that is gone plus I feel we’re finally in a position to make real-time decisions fed by all sorts of data“
Demand Planner
Fortune 100 Consumer Products Company

2. Go beyond analyzing internal data: utilize external data
When it comes to supply planning, collaborations and meetings in many organizations still happen at the granular level. Meanwhile, distribution centers and factories have their own goals in mind, and day-to-day operational decisions may not always aligned with what supply chain decision makers expect. Decisions based on gut-feel and high-level business aspirations produce a gap between strategic planning and operational execution. With Solvoyo, you can get a clear view of how supply and demand plans align across the entire end-to-end supply chain, and finally start having supply planning meetings that deliver the results you would like to see on the operational end.

3. Take proactive actions to profitably balance supply & demand
Most of the supply plans today put a lot of emphasis on the review of historical performance by addressing KPIs based on historical data. These KPIs are good indicators of supply chain capability, but they don’t necessarily support teams on finding ways to help their supply chains meet future expectations. This is one of the shortcomings of traditional planning software: lack of end-to-end visibility to sense the supply disruptions across the entire distribution network and enabling the planner to take prescriptive actions. With Solvoyo’s predictive capabilities, you can sense disruptions early on, get actionable insights and proactively adjust your supply plan considering the capacity and material constraints.

4. Empower all stakeholders in the demand planning process
The best demand plan is the one that receives input from all stakeholders and empowers them with data & insights to eliminate separate analysis:
- Sales and marketing which interact with the customer the most.
- Operations and finance which control supply through procurement or production, inventory investment, and the distribution infrastructure
- Supply chain which coordinates the planning and execution support for profitable flow of materials from the sources of supply to the end customer.
By involving everyone in the process and arming them with continuous insights from data such as price elasticity and promotion lifts, we help you create a more realistic demand plan which balances business targets against the customer needs while minimizing risks. All this happens on a single platform with one version of truth!

5. Not only forecast demand, but also manipulate it
It differs by vertical, but most enterprises can manipulate the demand for its products and services through specific actions:
- Changes in base price
- Marketing campaigns and promotions
- Changes in target service levels and fulfillment priorities
- Changes in product, service and/or customer portfolio
Solvoyo offers a comprehensive planning and analytics platform to maintain your campaigns, calculate the residual effect of your promotions, optimize your markdown decisions, apply tactical changes in planning parameters, measure your demand planning KPIs such as accuracy and bias through time, build a digital corporate memory of demand plans and incorporate the learnings into our ML algorithms to improve your next demand plan.
4 Step End-to-End Analytics Journey
Solvoyo combines the best of supply chain planning and advanced analytics into one integrated platform. It is not a black box but rather a platform to provide views and insights on your end to end supply chain to drive timely and effective demand plans.
Step 2: Diagnostic
"Why Did It Happen?"Drilling down to understand root-causes of stock-outs: The platform investigates the possible root causes of the stock issues. It provides a list of chronic understock/overstock products and gives visibility to parameters impacting stock-levels. The platform also analyzes demand drivers including price index, promotions, special days and visualizes the level of impact each driver has in demand.
Step 3: Predictive
Using Demand-Drivers for Forecasting Future Demand: Demand-drivers are used for forecast generation. Planned promotions, price changes and special days are taken into account to provide a more accurate view of the demand, minimizing the need for manual forecast adjustment. Solvoyo platform also provides inventory projections and highlights potential stock-out or stock cover issues so you can take proactive actions.
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All the solutions you need.
Under one platform.
Our platform concurrently plans and optimizes orders, inventory, and transportation in a holistic approach that’s far more effective than attempting to optimize each discretely. Solvoyo provides its solutions in one model across strategic, tactical, and operational time horizons.
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