Legacy sales history demand

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AX 2012 R2 CU6 - Legacy sales history / demand.

Seasoned experts, I am looking for some comments, thoughts on the following idea I have.

A little history:

To create suggested replenishment orders using AX MRP for the 1st few months after a 'go live date', I need to be able to rely on historic sales history demand from a legacy system. I have read bits of various articles, blogs and forums, most suggest that this isn't advisable to migrate historic sales history demand into AX , as per this article for example.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/jj225596.aspx and this bit "We recommend that you not import transactional data or historical data into Microsoft Dynamics AX". After talks with developers, I am tasked with finding an alternative solution albeit with a little development work. The import file is a .CSV file that contains the item number along with total sales demand for previous periods, e.g Month 1, Month 2, Month 3 etc, for 12 months

My thoughts are: - (I have done this manually for several items and I will be asking for this to be created automatically as part of our data migration requirements, subject to any comments I receive)

In the released product form > Plan > Forecast > Demand forecast > Create one line for each months legacy sales history with the date corresponding to the previous months history, i.e. 16/02/2014, 16/3/2014, etc for 12 months. The sales quantity is the sales demand for the corresponding months. This gives users visibility of legacy sales history,

Then I have created one extra line that replicates a legacy system weighted average sum, i.e. the total sales demand for the last 6 months + the total sales demand for the last 3 months.

(Pause for a cup of tea and a biscuit) .. To finish the legacy systems simplistic weighted average scenario (It would have been 6 Months + 3 Months / 9 to get to a period average demand), I have allocated a period key (to the one extra line that I have created)that divides the sum by 9 months.

AX then predicts the average quantity to order for that item over a 9 month period.

MRP when you include the forecast model will then suggest this quantity along with any AX sales order history replenishment requirements.

You can also add reduction keys into the forecast to gradually reduce the dependence on the historical period average demand, if need be.

I appreciate its no where near a perfect solution, but AX only needs to rely on historical sales demand for approximatley 9 months or so until AX sales orders takes over.

In summary:

Is this a good approach albeit with some short comings?

Has anyone actually imported historic sales demand so that AX MRP can use this history to recommend reorders?

Can anyone offer another solution?

I appreciate your time in reading and hopefully offering some advice

Kind regards

Martin

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Guy Terry 28,941 Moderator on at

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Hi Martin,

One question first. After you've been live for nine months, how will you get AX to use sales history that is in AX to create a demand forecast for future periods?

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Thanks for reading and replying Guy.

I don't really intend to .. I am looking at using min/max and the safety stock journal to replenish stock after AX has enough sales order demand etc, otherwise it would require a little more dev work to continue to use demand forecast, (I feel).

Demand forecasting using the historic sales demand is just for the interim period, trying to use a bit of both for a few months. Somehow during the first few months I need to combine historic sales demand with AX actual sales orders to calculate stock replenishment / stock holding until such time as AX will be to sole provider of sales history.

From what I have read, R3 maybe a better solution on how it handles demand but we are a long way off from upgrading to R3

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Guy Terry 28,941 Moderator on at

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From your explanation, I think what you're doing is using recent demand to predict future demand. And your formula 6 Months + 3 Months / 9 seems to give recent demand more weight than older demand. Can't argue with any of that.

Obviously, you will need to use multiple Forecast models. One forecast model will be for Master Planning, and will contain only the demand history you want it to see. The other demand history you import (e.g. the one that gives users visibility of legacy sales history) will have to be in separate forecast models.

I can't see any particular flaws. Since there is nothing in AX 2012 R2 for creating demand forecast automatically, there's no standard functionality that you're missing. There are 3rd party tools that use the multiple demand forecast model approach to do this, which I think validates the approach you have taken.

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Thanks Guy .. I appreciate your feedback

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Weaveriski 23,620 Moderator on at

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Hi Martin

I have no issues with the approach, the forecast holder is the one AX recommends in its demand forecaster approach (R3) - in essence this is getting history or a forecast (which you can export from AX) into Excel, pushing it into SSAS analysis services to apply whatever metrics you want whilst using SharePoint workflow to track the updates and progress of the Excel sheet before importing it back in as a forecast to plan against. MS want you to use forecasting to plan your history upon.

Not taking in history is the correct approach, and as you are only using it to drive expected demand the forecast approach is the best one.

Your biggest hurdle in my opinion is configuring AX Planning to give the users a fighting chance of seeing what they need to do and why and then acting upon it - not so much as an issue with AX but having someone at the customer site understand the planning outputs!

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Hi Steve ..

Thanks for taking time to read and yeah, I feel a lot better having feed back from experts such as yourself (and Guy) .. that this is the right way to go.

Much appreciated,

Have a good day now.

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