Aquaart Group Increases Accuracy of Demand Forecast with Novo Forecast Enterprise

2021: Completion of automation of the process of sales planning and operations

Russian plumbing manufacturer Aquaart Group has completed a project to automate the process of planning sales and operations. Thanks to the Novo Forecast Enterprise digital solution, the accuracy of the demand forecast has increased by 20%. This was announced on October 5, 2021 by Novo BI (Novo Biay).

The key goal of the IT project was to simplify and automate the entire process of sales planning and process operations, as well as create a single information space for planning. At the time of the start of the project, planning labor costs were 580 h/h per month, that is, 6 people made a demand forecast for two weeks. The demand forecasting system, which uses algorithmic machine learning to calculate the forecast, helped reduce labor costs to 40 h/h per month, that is, now this work is carried out by the same team of 6 people in 1 day.

In addition, the demand forecasting system helps to plan demand for new products with high accuracy, without relying on previous sales experience. With the help of artificial intelligence, Novo Forecast Enterprise finds the most suitable analogues in the range and builds a forecast on this basis.

{{quote "The high accuracy of the forecast helped us bring almost 200 new products to the market over the past year, with a significant share of sales in August being products launched over the past year. Competent clustering of nomenclature and customers allows us to analyze the output of new products without relying on previous experience, and we trust forecasts for new products - said Dmitry Zarechnyuk, Operating Director of Aquaart Group. }}

Automation of the process of planning sales and operations helps companies not only to improve the accuracy of forecasting demand, but also to free up the time of employees from routine work, switching the human resource to other tasks - commented Evgeny Nepeivoda, managing partner of Novo BI, an IT solution developer.

2020: Implementation of Novo Forecast Enterprise

The introduction of Novo Forecast Enterprise into Aquaart's planning began in 2020.

Implementation results

1. simplified and automated S&OP process, implemented a single information space for planning, clear reporting

2. Planning accuracy increased to 77% (+ 20%)

3.Ten Times Reduced Planning Effort

Category managers focus on sales development rather than routine operations:

• significant increase in the number of customers
• more than 200 new products were launched on the market over the year
• sales growth without an increase in inventory amounted to a two-digit percentage
• recalculated plans from natural units to monetary units
• introduced the functionality of advanced promotional forecasting without relying on previous experience
• Created an ETL environment that allows you to identify possible errors, duplicates, breaks in data
• reduced time to recalculate sales plans based on factors hours and days instead of weeks and months
• growth in the speed and efficiency of planning the commissioning of new products and listings

Aquaart and NovoForecastEnterprise Project Development Plans

• Automation of the commodity calendar and auto-order to suppliers
• Statistical calculation of safety stock through probabilistic model and limiters
• Further work on improving the accuracy of the forecast for new products

Notes