Process documentationCustomer Forecast Management

 

You can use this process to receive and analyze incoming customer forecast data and make the necessary adjustments before releasing it to Demand Planning for downstream planning. An analysis of forecasts enables the vendor to sense tendencies and changes in customer demand and integrate this information into replenishment planning. Customer Forecast Management ensures higher responsiveness to fluctuations in demand and also contributes to the prevention of stock-outs.

Prerequisites

  • You have maintained location product master data for the relevant products.

  • You have made the basic settings for Customer Forecast Management in Customizing. For more information, see Customizing for Demand Planning under Start of the navigation path Customer Forecast Management Next navigation step Define Profiles and Settings for Customer Forecast Management End of the navigation path.

  • You have defined a forecast analysis profile and a forecast release profile, specifying parameters for analyzing the forecast data and releasing it after the analysis run. For more information, see Forecast Analysis Profile and Forecast Release Profile.

  • You have defined key figure comparisons and assigned them to the forecast analysis profile in Customizing. For more information, see Customizing for Demand Planning under Start of the navigation path Customer Forecast Management Next navigation step Define Profiles and Settings for Customer Forecast Management End of the navigation path.

  • You have assigned the forecast analysis profile and the forecast release profile to the location product master data.

  • You have created characteristic combinations for the relevant location products in Demand Planning.

Process

  1. You receive forecast data from the customer either as a CSV file or as an IDoc.

  2. You upload the original forecasts to an InfoCube from the IDoc or CSV file provided. For more information, see Inbound Processing of Customer Forecasts. You can also enter the data manually on the Customer Forecast Management screen.

  3. You run a forecast analysis manually or schedule it as a background job. For more information, see Forecast Analysis Run.

  4. The system checks forecast data for readiness and completeness, and it compares different versions of forecasts by performing a tolerance check. If violations occur, the system generates and outputs alerts in the Alert Monitor and also on the Customer Forecast Management overview screen.

  5. You display forecast data on the Customer Forecast Management screen, filtering it according to your personalized settings. You can access the screen in SAP NetWeaver Business Client, under Start of the navigation path Customer Forecast Management Next navigation step CFM POWL End of the navigation path. On the details screen, you can make manual adjustments to the forecast data, which create adjusted customer forecasts. See Personal Object Worklist for Customer Forecast Management.

  6. You release the data to Demand Planning (or to a different target if you have defined one in Customizing) by approving the data on the Customer Forecast Management overview or details screen. The system deletes the released forecasts from the list on the Customer Forecast Management screen. For more information, see Customer Forecast Data Release to DP.

  7. When needed, you can perform a waterfall analysis on the forecast data, which enables you to view forecast quantities at different points in time. You can also output the results to a Microsoft Excel sheet. For more information, see Waterfall Analysis.