Optimal inventory management & procurement
Optimal’s optimization-based, rule-driven bill-of-materials generator solves comprehensive inventory management and procurement problems for minimum cost identifying savings you never knew were there!
Achieving savings through all phases of the inventory management and procurement process
From buying inventory for resale to procurement of raw materials to purchasing supplies, the Optimal Decision Optimization Solutions optimize all phases of the inventory management and procurement process, achieving measurable savings, typically 5-10%, often much more, compared to flawed spreadsheets and other less capable programs.
- Strategic Decision; Long range planning procurement
- Continuous inventory management and scheduling
- Final assembly
- Time periods
- Multiple vendors and costs
- Purchased items specifications
- Inventory levels
- Items (Ingredients)
- Lots (unique occurrences of items and attributes)
- Formulas Specifications (Items and Constraints)
- Input (Formula or Product)
- Input Sets (a manufacturing schedule by Formulas or Products)
- Suppliers (optional)
- Locations (optional)
- Much more…
FEATURES
Optimal provides optimization decision support guidance to meet your inventory and/or manufacturing requirements considering and complying with critical elements:
FEATURES
Optimal provides optimization decision support guidance to meet your inventory and/or manufacturing requirements considering and complying with critical elements:
- Time periods
- Multiple vendors and costs
- Purchased items specifications
- Inventory levels
- Items (Ingredients)
- Lots (unique occurrences of items and attributes)
- Formulas Specifications (Items and Constraints)
- Input (Formula or Product)
- Input Sets (a manufacturing schedule by Formulas or Products)
- Suppliers (optional)
- Locations (optional)
- Much more…
models
Individual Models Include the following:
product development:
Optimizes a recipe or BOM for one product, either single or multi-level; for designing products (e.g., products containing sub-formulas).
single product:
Optimizes a single product recipe or BOM.
Sequential Single Product:
Optimizes a series of single product recipes or BOMs either considering or not considering inventory utilization by formulation; materials are allocated to batches based on assembly order as Sequential Single Product does not look ahead in optimizing the batch sequence.
Multi Product:
Optimizes multiple products for a single time period creating a composite recipe or BOM; the result is a composite recipe for the entire timeframe that will likely require adjustment for any specific point in time.
Procurement Planning:
Optimizes multiple products through a series of discrete time periods (e.g., days, weeks, months) creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple suppliers, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications through the planning period.
Production Planning:
Optimizes multiple products through a series of discrete time periods (e.g., days, weeks, months) creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications through the planning period.
Lot Allocation:
Optimizes multiple products through a sequence of discrete batches or steps creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications batch sequence.
Multi-Site:
Procurement Planning for multiple sites considering transportation costs between manufacturing sites and storage locations.
models
Individual Models Include the following:
Optimizes a recipe or BOM for one product, either single or multi-level; for designing products (e.g., products containing sub-formulas).
Optimizes a single product recipe or BOM.
Optimizes a series of single product recipes or BOMs either considering or not considering inventory utilization by formulation; materials are allocated to batches based on assembly order as Sequential Single Product does not look ahead in optimizing the batch sequence.
Optimizes multiple products for a single time period creating a composite recipe or BOM; the result is a composite recipe for the entire timeframe that will likely require adjustment for any specific point in time.
Optimizes multiple products through a series of discrete time periods (e.g., days, weeks, months) creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple suppliers, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications through the planning period.
Optimizes multiple products through a series of discrete time periods (e.g., days, weeks, months) creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications through the planning period.
Optimizes multiple products through a sequence of discrete batches or steps creating recipes or BOMs considering Item and Lot availability and expiration for use, beginning inventory, permissible ending inventory, multiple occurrences Item Lots with respective costs and other specifications batch sequence.
Procurement Planning for multiple sites considering transportation costs between manufacturing sites and storage locations.
Optimal Solutions are cloud based thus facilitating rapid deployment and support, eliminating most IT support costs, and enabling regular, non-disruptive updates.
The Optimal interface includes powerful data import/export features to accelerate database construction. The Optimal API provides automated data exchange and optimization for tight connectivity with ERP systems.
HOSTING
HOSTING
applications
optimal procurement, Optimal Bid Selection
Applications enable users to determine the purchase quantities to minimize total cost considering multiple vendors, quantity discount schedules, and delivery factors. Optimal identifies for sales orders the necessary purchases of raw material or inventory to meet sales requirements from a mix of suppliers for products where each supplier has different but overlapping products available and different costs for the products.
Optimal Inventory Management
Enables users to determine inventory levels by period to meet customer demands at the minimum cost while complying with delivery, storage, production, and available to purchase constraints.
An implementation of Optimal is determining the minimum cost inventory levels to meet sales demands given order costs and safety stock requirements.
optimal blending,
Optimal Formulation,
Optimal Product Design
Applications enable users to determine how to mix components to composition specifications at the lowest cost.
The simplest implementation of an Optimal Blending application is solving a single formula for minimum cost.
More sophisticated applications model multiple formulas across multiple time frames across multiple plants considering multiple suppliers of ingredients (the Configurations section contains additional information).
Optimal aids decision makers in optimally purchasing and allocating ingredients to manufacturing and to making final adjustments to recipes to meet quality and composition requirements at the lowest cost. In each step, incremental savings are generated while ensuring compliance with quality and regulatory standards.
Configurations
Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement configurations are available with features and pricing appropriate for any size of entity.
The configurations are:
SIMPLE
The Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement Solution, Simple Configuration, enables users to generate optimized solutions to small problems in various industries with a few variables and constraints using a Single Product model with very limited options. The Simple Configuration enables users learning about optimization to learn about the benefits of optimization in an educational size problem. Real world problems are larger and more complex.
BASIC
The Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement Solution, Basic Configuration, enables users in certain industries to generate optimized solutions to small problems with a few variables and constraints using a Single Product model with limited options. The Simple Configuration enables users to generate optimized recipes and BOMs for products with relatively static Item costs and attribute values as well as simple product specifications.
STANDARD
The Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement Solution, Standard Configuration, enables users to generate optimized solutions to problems with more variables and constraints than the Basic Configuration. The Standard Configuration provides users with the Single Product model as well as Sequential Single Product and Multi-Product models.
CORPORATE
The Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement Solution, Corporate Configuration, is intended for medium and large single site operations. The Corporate Configuration enables users to generate optimized recipes and BOMs through all phases of the materials planning, sequencing, and assembly process. The Corporate Configuration provides users with the Procurement Planning, Production Planning and Lot Allocation models, as well as those models in the Standard Configuration. The Optimal API is included with the Corporate Configuration.
ENTERPRISE
The Optimal Inventory Management & Procurement Solution, Enterprise Configuration, is intended for medium and large multi site operations. Besides the features of the Corporate, the Enterprise Configuration enables users to generate optimized recipes, BOMs, procurement and inventory management plans considering multiple manufacturing and storage sites. The Enterprise Configuration provides users with the Multi-site models.
