Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment for e-distribution system - A case of Vietnam trade alliance
Abstract
Anheuser-Busch InBev is the leading global brewer and one of the world’s top five consumer products. The brewery in Binh Duong province will produce Budweiser and Beck’s.
Vietnam Trade Alliance plays a role as a distribution center of (Budweiser Beer Manufacturer). Monthly, based on the forecast sale of ABI, VTA would purchase an amount of beer to sell in that month. However, the order quantity tends to be placed by experience and sense of the staff. Despite the fluctuation of the demand, the staff counts on the average number of the previous sale to decide the number to purchase. Meanwhile, the number of orders is not stable like traditional way anymore but comes real time, unexpectedly. This is one of the toughest obstacles to deal with the e-commerce playground. And Vietnam Trade Alliance (VTA) is also the enterprise struggling with that problem.
The purpose of this project is to automatically forecast the monthly sale with higher accuracy. In rush hours, there would be no “out of stock” in the local warehouses, which means the operators in the main office do not need to be on the phone deal with “emergency case” all the time. Based on the sale forecast and inventory level, the purchasing staff has a better order planning (with optimal quantity). From that, VTA could optimize the cost for warehousing, ordering, labor, management.
Keywords: Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment (CPFR); time series forecast, seasonal index, e-commerce, sensitive analysis.