Amitive supports multiple traditional periodic planning methods including:

• MRP (Material Requirements Planning)
• Demand / Supply Synchronization
• Min/Max
• ROP/ROQ

The Amitive Planning Engine balances Demand and Supply to reduce a community owners inventory and liabilities; thus improving the cash flow. Unlike traditional MRP systems, Amitive’s can provide event based replanning so that users can take immediate action where needed, and not have to wait until the next batch run.

The Planning Engine takes in demand from sales orders and forecasts and supply from inventory and purchase orders and balances the two. Where there are imbalances over the time horizon, and there is a projected shortage, the Planning Engine provides recommendations on what to order, in what quantity, on what date, and from which supplier or will approve and expedite a message.

If the system sees that there is too much projected inventory it will recommend actions to reschedule and / or cancelation message. Various configurable inputs can also be incorporated into this logic ranging from lot sizing rules to multiple supplier lead times. All of this information provides the system with the necessary information to make supply related decisions to ensure an even flow of materials to reduce inventory and liability, while still meeting customer expectations.

 

What sets Amitive apart is our industry breakthrough approach to event-driven planning we call practical optimization.  Planning is performed in event-driven, net-change runs that are faster and less taxing to perform and far less disruptive to the community resulting in practical optimization for higher service levels with lower costs. 

 

Traditional MRP and advanced planning systems were built to plan on a periodic basis.  Periodic with time fences to minimize disruption of production, logistics and fulfillment already in, or staged to, process.  The challenge was that the supply chain is a dynamic environment with a plethora of variables continuously in play. 

The solution was event management.  Sense and respond mechanisms were designed to recognize and address change that would significantly impact plans and to alert planners or make changes automatically. 

Changes in this model are typically expedited fixes, not optimization.  This approach can be effective in a manufacturing-centric environment, but the virtual manufacturing environment requires more fluidity and collaboration to manage continuous change.

  Amitive is, therefore, the first to introduce a new approach to dynamic supply chain management:  Practical Optimization. 

The Amitive Demand/Supply Synchronization engine uses a sense and respond architecture that is event-driven rather than simply periodic. 

The engine traces upstream and downstream to assess the impact of the change.  

The change algorithms then perform net-change incremental vs. system-wide runs. 

This triggers work-flow driven notifications and recommendations for collaboration to overcome constraints requiring community teamwork, not just mathematical remedies.  It is, therefore, a practical vs. mathematical optimization. 
It also empowers proactive vs. reactive management among the supply chain community. 

This practical optimization drives higher service level attainment, decreases disruption, and enhances responsiveness for planned and dynamic customer requirements.