Industrial printing solutions provider selects Smart Software to better handle inventory with more accurate lead time demand estimates
Belmont, MA — March 8, 2006 — Printronix, a global supplier of industrial and back-office enterprise printing solutions, said this week that it has purchased Smart Software Inc.'s SmartForecasts to help strengthen its sales and operations planning process through improved forecast accuracy, inventory management and customer service.
Printronix, a $130 million company in fiscal 2005 with headquarters in Irvine, Calif., plans to integrate SmartForecasts with its SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and use the software's results to support worldwide operations. The company operates four manufacturing facilities and 27 sales and support offices that serve customers around the globe.
Printronix has built a strong reputation for shipping product same day or next day after order receipt. This policy has led them to maintain excessive inventory on many of the over 3,500 stock-keeping units (SKUs) shipped to customers.
Prior to the implementation of SmartForecasts, the company lacked formal means to set accurate inventory stocking levels. With SmartForecasts, Printronix expects to improve the way it manages its inventory by getting more accurate estimates of lead time demand, as well as minimizing the amount of inventory necessary to meet the service level needs of same-day shipping.
Additionally, the company is interested in using SmartForecasts to better integrate forecast data into its sales and operations planning process, including the use of input from sales and marketing personnel to build a consensus forecast.
SmartForecasts provides us with a path for growth with the right balance of cost and functionality, said Gary Inscore, director of master scheduling at Printronix. This system is an important part of getting good reliable data to everyone in the organization responsible for setting well-balanced inventory levels, so that we have the right amount of product on the shelves at the right time. The ability to integrate SmartForecasts with our SAP system will also allow us to share forecast data more easily across the company.
SmartForecasts will provide Printronix with demand forecasts and estimates of inventory stocking level requirements for any lead time and service level combination. It can be integrated with almost all host databases, including Oracle, SQL Server and DB2, as well as ERP systems such as SAP, Epicor and Adonix.
Additional Articles of Interest
- — For an in-depth look at how agribusiness Syngenta is reducing inventory while maintaining customer service levels by building a demand planning process based on a collaborative forecasting solution, see the SDCExec.com article " Forecasting Processes from the Ground Up ."
— Demand planners at glove manufacturer Wells Lamont have put their finger on a way to bring new value to the company by leveraging technology that allows them to plan by exception. Read their story in the article " Planning by Exception," in the December 2004/January 2005 issue of Supply & Demand Chain Executive.
