Overview

Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning is a Supply Chain Planning solution developed for a broad range of companies. Most of our customers are manufacturers and/or distributors, but the application is successfully used in other industries such as retailing and spare parts. It adapts easily to individual customers through a simple specification process that takes a few hours to complete.

Demand Forecasting is the marriage of a superior statistical forecasting system with a user interface to support a modern Collaborative Forecasting Environment. Our statistical system outperforms other more expensive tools. The user interface contains a variety of simple, but powerful ways to modify the statistical forecasts with adjustments related to market intelligence, management planning or promotions.

The forecasts are organized into a structure of pyramids or environments that support aggregation to summary levels and convert units to dollars so that management can review and compare to existing plans. Adjustments can be made to any level of aggregation and forced onto lower level forecasts for an item or item at a location.

Inventory Planning uses the combination of statistical forecasts plus adjustments we call Management Forecasts to compute reorder rules that can support any inventory replenishment process. Some clients pass the order quantity, safety stock and reorder point or min/max to other systems. Others use our replenishment systems - Master Scheduling, DRP and Joint Replenishment to generate suggested orders for various points in their Supply Chain.

Master Scheduling produces time phased orders for up to two years and works well for discrete manufacturers. An annual inventory plan is generated to help management monitor overall inventory levels and manufacturing capacity. DRP is an extension of master scheduling and takes orders from another company location as dependent requirements to combine with independent demand requirements for a central location. Our Joint Replenishment model recommends orders for groups of items obtained from a common source like an outside vendor. The recommended order may be compared to multiple constraints and refined to fit those constraints such as truck or rail car capacity.

Distinguishing Features

Our software has been continuously enhanced for 18 years. In its limited scope, it is competitive functionally with any system in the marketplace. We have priced it attractively for companies who don't feel compelled to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for acquisition.

We have many years experience with our system in a variety of industries. We understand implementation and support. Our clients rate our support as excellent.

Benefits

Ease of use minimizes time spent improving forecasts and translates to payroll savings.

Better financial performance and a competitive edge by:

• Improved forecast accuracy
• Optimum safety stock to protect service and sales
• Improved inventory availability
• Increased customer satisfaction

Our Company

LBA Systems was founded in January 1997 as a successor to Lucas-Bear & Associates. We have enhanced and modernized the Lucas-Bear software systems for Demand Forecasting and Inventory Planning originally created in 1985.

We develop and maintain the system for the PC and for all Microsoft Operating Systems. We continue to support Lucas-Bear customers who obtained the system in the 90's and welcome new customers interested in a superior forecasting system linked to flexible inventory planning and replenishment.