BACKGROUND: In 1995, Ford Tractor Division of Ford Motor Company & Ford-New Holland Company merged, necessitating a merger of their parts supply computer systems. Parts depots were coping with 3 order-entry systems and headquarters was attemoting to manage with 3 independent inventory control systems facing 2 engineering departments. I had worked from 1969 thru March 1991 with Ford Tractor Parts Operations management who, in 1968, had just launched a new Parts Inventory control system. They had come to realize that it did not give them the control they needed to superimpose Inventory budget objectives over the day-to-day procurement process.
I was management's liase with the Systems Department, so was both responsible for designing solutions to problems, but seeing them thru to implementation, and following with continuous monitoring. As Supervisor of Parts Operations - Systems Support, I was responsible for every aspect of the computer operation & desk procedures. By 1995, I had garnered the hands-on experience to design this major system re-write for Ford Tractor. Because both Ford Tractor and New Holland had counterpart Divisions in UK & Belgium, the system was expected to be able to be ported to a computer facility in Europe with minimal change. This World-Class Service Parts system re-write included Centralization of Customer Support, Log-A-Call, Order Tracking, Inventory Control, Forecasting, Order Processing, Referral, Backorder management, Cataloging, Releasing, Billing, Payroll, Warehouse Dispatch/Pick/Pack/Ship, Online Receiving, Claims and Returns, Stock-Keeping, Cycle-Inventory, and support systems such as Warehouse Relocation & Layout, Inventory Obsolescence & Scrapping, and all Financial project preparation. Design included data and process modeling, screen design, specification, liaison with Systems, test design, testing, documentation and training. I experienced a breadth of creative opportunity not attainable in larger Ford divisions. The International (remote) Team was responsible for Integration of three (3) International company systems.
This writeup will attempt to outline key design aspects for each of the above systems, and could serve as a blueprint to any business involving inventory & distribution. I will be creating web pages to demo as many aspects as occur to me. This is expected to be a multi-year project I've finally begun (2012) after retiring in 2003, and years of honing my web design & php programming skills and just thinking about it.
// Key Formulae Variable Definitions // ym[0] current YrMonth e.g.200506,ym[1]=1st prior YrMonth e.g.200505,... ,ym[24]=24th prior YrMonth // s[1][0]-s[24][n] unit sales in current month & thru prior month 24 at location 1 thru location n. // S[0] current month sales at all locations (derived). // S[1]-S[24] total unit sales at all locations in 1st thru 24th prior month resp, stored as S[ym[1]] etc. // T1 sum last 12 months sales // T2 sum 13-24th month sales //Key Data Elements // volCd E=$1000sls/yr+$1000inv, A=$1000sls/yr, B=$500sls/yr, C=<$500sls/yr, D=<9unitSls/yr // schedCd 0=DirectShip,1=TransShip,2=Std,3=Pkg.Reqd,4=PPR,5=stdHardware,6=ForeignSupplier,7=centralStock // cumCd 1=Cumulative release, 2=non-cumulative release, 3=PPR reqd (no source) // fcstCd 0=none(too new),1=50%WtdTrend,2=75%WtdTrend,3=Last12Mo,4=ExplSmooth // reasonCd 00=normal(default),40=InitialOrderQty, 50=MinBuyReqd/EOQ, ... // stkCd 1=active, 0=inactive // unitQty number of widgets sold as one unit (e.g. matched bearings - never sold separately) // pkgQty number of units sold as a package (e.g. package of 4 spark plugs[4]) // shipMult number of units shipped between stocking locations (e.g.overpack carton w/12 pkg of 4 plugs[48]) // schedMult number of units procured at a time (e.g. pallet of overpack cartons of packages of spark plugs) //TEMP FILES - RE-BUILT MONTHLY FROM DATA FILES // YrMoNb || Yr | Month /* 0=current Month, 1=Next Month, -1=1st Prior Month, etc. ..table rebuilt monthly*/ // sku | YrMoNb | loc || unitSales| invQty | LocMoFcst // sku | YrMoNb || totSales | totInvQty | NatlMoFcst | MinMosFcst // sku || NatlFcst | NRP | natlMinMos | natlMaxMos | locRQMinMos | locRQMaxMos //DATA TABLES // sku | faceloc | Dt | merchant || unitSales | timesSld // sku | faceloc | Dt || unitSales | timesSld // sku | shiploc || stkCd | whseLoc(section/aisle/row/elevation/bin)| cycleInvFreqCd| cycleInvDt| invQty | LRQ | locFcst | // sku | effDt || dlrCost | stdCost // sku | rcvloc | schedDt || schedQty | releaseDt | releaseNb // sku || Desc | shortDesc | unitMult | pkgQty| schedMult | supplierCd | volCd | cumCd | tmsCd | fcstCd | reasonCd | unitWt | LeadMos | NRP | NatlFcst |