JUNO is a planning tool which – based on provided data – calculates optimal quantities of goods to be delivered to company’s outlets in a continuous, weekly cycle. In the process JUNO considers the following data:
- current stock levels in all outlets and in the supplying warehouse,
- historical and current levels of sales, returns and stock expiry,
- dynamically calculated short term sales forecast.
Our application is highly configurable and can be adjusted to numerous business scenarios by defining the following factors:
- number of outlets to be supplied,
- delivery schedule for each outlet,
- storage capacity for each assortment in aa outlet,
- planning parameters, separately for each assortment type,
- substitution groups (items that are alternatives for each other).
Forecast calculation is made using several statistical methods (e.g., ARIMA, Holt-Winters) with user defined impact of each method on the final result. There is also an automated appraisal of each method’s accuracy, using error measurements, like RMSE, MASE, ACF1, etc.
JUNO can find its place in application landscape of almost any company with a dispersed structure, working on improving in areas of:
- stock level optimisation in remote locations,
- lowering stock level in a central distribution facility,
- distribution of stock in case of frequent over- or under- availability,
- improvements in operational planning in sales and distribution processes,
- lowering losses due to expiration of fresh goods.
To perform its calculations JUNO requires two types of data: static and transactional. Static data such as SKUs, outlets, delivery schedule are taken from customer’s ERP system. It can also be maintained within JUNO if the current ERP does not provide such them. Transactional data includes current stocks, current sales, current returns and is derived from existing sales applications. In case of a retail business such data can also be taken from another Vimana product: NGEJ – Next Generation Electronic Journal, which provides sales data straight from fiscal printers installed in outlets.