Generating Seasonal Profiles—Exercises

IMPORTANT
It is extremely important that you set up and work within your own Server ID in order to maintain your data integrity. If you work within any other server id, you will compromise your exercise data as well as the data of other students. Predictable exercise results require that your data be isolated to your own server id.

Basic Data Setup

Defining Schedule

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to set up a schedule for the different steps in the forecast cycle.

Windows:
Demand Plan Server Setup/Scheduling
Forecast Server

  1. Set up a schedule for your server ID.
  2. Start the Demand Planning Server.

General exercise for Defining Schedule

Main Exercises

Purpose: The purpose of these exercises is to show you how to adjust the forecast using some of the features of the graphical user interface.

 

Windows:
Forecast Client

Generating Seasonal Profiles

  1. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start button, point to Programs, and then click Forecast Server.
  2. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start button, point to Programs, and then click Forecast Client. Log on to the client using <appowner> as both the user ID and password.
  3. In the Flow ID list, select one of your flows. In the Part No list, select a part.
  4. On the Window menu, click Forecast Table.
  5. In the Adj. Demand list, edit the same four historical periods for each year so that you get a distinct season for the part (this is done for simulation purposes only).
  6. Repeat steps 3–5 for two more parts.
  7. On the File menu, click Exit to close the Demand Plan Client.
  8. Double-click the Demand Plan Server icon in the lower right corner of the screen to open the Demand Plan Server.
  9. On the System menu, click Generate Season Profiles. Once the process has been performed, a message appears indicating how many new profiles were created and stored in the season profile library.
  10. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start button, point to Programs, and then click Forecast Client. Log on to the client using appowner as both the user ID and password.
  11. In the Flow ID list, select the flow that contains your part to verify that profiles have been created and assigned to the parts.
  12. In the Part No list, select the specified parts. In the Season Profile/Std. Season Profile fields, you will find that a profile has been assigned to each part. This profile is now incorporated into the system forecast.
  13. On the SeasonProfile menu, click Save to save the profile. Name the season profile, and click Save.
  14. If you want to deselect the profile from the part, click Std Season Profile and then click None.
  15. On the View menu, click Season Profile Graph to view the seasonal profiles. This graph shows the historical demand that has built up the season profile.

Creating Seasonal Profiles Manually

  1. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start button, point to Programs, and then click Demand Plan Server.
  2. On the Windows taskbar, click the Start button, point to Programs, and then click Demand Plan Client. Log on to the client using appowner as both the user ID and password.
  3. In the Flow ID list, select one of your flows. In the Part No list, select a part (do not select any of the parts used in the previous exercise).
  4. On the Window menu, click Forecast Table.
  5. In the Adj. Demand list, edit the same four historical periods for each year so that you get a distinct season for the part (this is done for simulation purposes only).
  6. On the Window menu, click Season Profile Graph. You will now find the historical demand pattern for the part with each year a separate object.
  7. In the SeasonProfile menu, click New Season Profile. A new curve, called Season Profile appears in the graph.
  8. Adjust this curve so that it indicates the same profile as the System profile. In general, the longer the history, the closer the seasonal profile should be to the system profile.
  9. On the SeasonProfile menu, click Normalize Season Profiles. Normalization involves multiplying each period by a factor so that its sum equals the number of periods in a year.
  10. On the SeasonProfile menu, click Save. Name the profile, and click Save again. If normalization has not yet taken place, it will be done when the profile is saved.

Note: You can also create a new profile using the Season Table.