## Understanding Forecast Management

This chapter discusses:

- Description of Forecast Management.

- Features of Forecast Management.

- Tables used by Forecast Management.

### Description of Forecast Management

Effective management of distribution and manufacturing activities begins with understanding and anticipating market needs. Forecasting is the process of projecting past sales demand into the future. Implementing a forecasting system enables you to assess current market trends and sales quickly so that you can make informed decisions about the operations.

You can use forecasts to make planning decisions about:

- Customer orders.

- Inventory.

- Delivery of goods.

- Work load.

- Capacity requirements.

- Warehouse space.

- Labor.

- Equipment.

- Budgets.

- Development of new products.

- Work force requirements.

The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Forecast Management system generates these types of forecasts:

- Detail forecasts, which are based on individual items.

- Summary (or aggregated) forecasts, which are based on larger product groups, such as a product line.

- Planning bill forecasts, which are based on groups of items in a bill of material format and reflect how an item is sold, not how an item is built.

### Features of Forecast Management

You can use JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Forecast Management to:

- Generate forecasts.

- Enter forecasts manually.

- Maintain forecasts that are generated by the system and entered manually.

- Create unique forecasts by large customer.

- Summarize sales order history data in weekly or monthly time periods.

- Generate forecasts that are based on any or all of 12 different formulas that address a variety of forecast situations that you might encounter.

- Calculate which of the 12 formulas provides the best fit forecast.

- Define the hierarchy that the system uses to summarize sales order histories and detail forecasts.

- Create multiple hierarchies of address book category codes and item category codes, which you can use to sort and view records in the detail forecast tables.

- Review and adjust both forecasts and sales order actuals at any level of the hierarchy.

- Integrate the detail forecast records into Master Production Schedule (MPS), Material Requirements Planning (MRP), and Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP) generations.

- Force changes made at any component level to both higher levels and lower levels.

- Set a bypass flag to prevent changes that are generated by the force program being made to a level.

- Store and display original and adjusted quantities and amounts.

- Attach descriptive text to a forecast at the detail and summary levels.

Flexibility is a key feature of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Forecast Management. The most accurate forecasts consider quantitative information, such as sales trends and past sales order history, as well as qualitative information, such as changes in trade laws, competition, and government. The system processes quantitative information and enables you to adjust it with qualitative information. When you aggregate, or summarize, forecasts, the system uses changes that you make at any level of the forecast to automatically update all of the other levels.

You can perform simulations that are based on the initial forecast to compare different situations. After you accept a forecast, the system updates the manufacturing and distribution plan with any changes that you have made.

The system writes zero or negative detail records. For example, if the quantities or amounts in Refresh Actuals (R3465), Forecast Generation (R34650), or Forecast Revisions (P3460) are zero or negative, the system creates zero or negative records in the Forecast File table (F3460).

### Tables Used by Forecast Management

The tables that are used by JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Forecast Management must identify data and processing information to support the forecasting process:

Table | Description
Business Unit Master (F0006) | Identifies branch, plant, warehouse, or business unit information, such as company, description, and assigned category codes.
Address Book Master (F0101) | Stores all of the address information pertaining to customers, vendors, employees, prospects, and others.
Forecast Summary File (F3400) | Contains the summary forecasts that are generated by the system and the summarized sales order history that is created by the Refresh Actuals program (R3465).
Forecast Summary Work File (F34006) | Connects the summary records from the Forecast Summary File table (F3400) to the detail records in the Forecast File table (F3460).
Forecast Prices (F34007) | Stores price information for item, branch, customer, and forecast type combinations.
Forecast File (F3460) | Contains the detail forecasts that are generated by the system and the sales order history that is created by the Refresh Actuals program (R3465).
Category Code Key Position File (F4091) | Stores the summary constants that you set up for each product hierarchy.
Item Master (F4101) | Stores basic information about each defined inventory item, such as item number, description, category codes, and unit of measure.
Item Branch File (F4102) | Defines and maintains warehouse or plant level information, such as costs, quantities, physical locations, and branch level category codes.
Sales Order Detail File (F4211) | Provides sales order demand by the requested date. The system uses this table to update the Sales Order History File table (F42119) for forecast calculations.
Sales Order History File (F42119) | Contains past sales data, which provide the basis for the forecast calculations.