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Inventory Optimization

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Success Strategies for Demand Forecasting in Supply Chain

2 December 2021

There’s been a lot of change in how we view supply chain demand forecasting: we moved from a focus on supply—what and how much to supply or replenish—to the demand-driven supply chain, which placed too much emphasis on the intermediate[...]

23 November 2021

7 Ways Businesses Can Manage Supply Chain Shortages in 2022

With 2021's holiday shopping season behind us,  supply delays, logistics constraints, and inflation loomed over shoppers and retailers—and the manufacturers and distributors who keep them in supply. The supply chain shortages from 2021 remain the story of our lives today,[...]
23 August 2021

Here’s How to Measure Inventory Health

Looking for a relatively quick way to measure inventory health? “It all starts with a demand-driven approach,” says Gerrott Faulkingham, director of solution engineering at ToolsGroup. “Even though we’re talking about inventory, we first have to understand customer buying behavior—and[...]
24 March 2021

Multi-echelon Inventory Optimization (MEIO) vs Inventory Optimization

The subway system is the lifeblood of New York City, pre-COVID carrying an average of 5.5 million people per day in 6,684 cars across 472 stations¹. Each station is part of a larger system and operates on a set schedule[...]
3 March 2021

Fashion Industry Challenges Require Elegant Demand Planning

When you’re perusing luxury handbags online, or testing which cocktail dress suits you the best, you probably don’t pause to consider all the supply chain complexities and analytics required to ensure the fashion items you’re craving are in-stock. While sophisticated[...]
23 February 2021

Inventory Planning vs. Inventory Optimization: What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between traditional inventory planning and inventory optimization? Anyone can come up with a plan. The real challenge is making sure it’s a good plan. Optimizing your inventory is a different beast than simply planning your inventory. If[...]
11 June 2019

Five Things You Need to Know about Inventory Optimization in the Digital Age

With all the buzz around digital transformation, someone peering in from outside supply chain may assume most businesses have already digitized essential tasks like inventory planning. The reality is that this transformation takes time and a change of mindset. It’s[...]
14 May 2019

The Absolut Company: Balancing Service and Inventory Creates a Delicious Mix

The world’s #2 selling vodka brand leaves nothing to chance when it comes to quality and sustainability. Here’s how they teamed up with ToolsGroup partner Optilon for a seamless supply chain planning process. With continuously shifting consumer preferences and brands[...]
12 April 2019

How to Make Supply Chain Complexity Work to Your Advantage

With supply chain complexity increasing at an unprecedented rate, perhaps the biggest challenge for businesses is figuring out how to navigate this uncertainty to deliver service profitably. Amazon sells more than 3 billion products through 11 different country marketplaces globally.[...]
5 February 2019

Design, Operating and Situational Inventory Trade-Offs

Gartner analyst Paul Lord has developed a framework to better understand inventory trade-offs by categorizing those decisions according to the objectives they are meant to achieve: structural, operational and situational. Many companies struggle with decisions such as “How many days of[...]
13 November 2018

Why Probabilistic Forecasting Is Better for Inventory Optimization

Last month we published a primer on probabilistic forecasting, an alternative to deterministic or ‘single number’ forecasting. In this post we’ll explore how probabilistic forecasting not only creates better forecasts, but also improves inventory optimization by improving the stock levels[...]
25 September 2018

Balancing Service Levels and Supply Chain Costs

Editor’s Note: Last year ToolsGroup became Microsoft’s partner for Multi-echelon Inventory Optimization (MEIO) in Industrial accounts. We collaborated on a blog about how to solve the often difficult challenge of balancing service levels with supply chain costs. You can see[...]