Running a high-performing Caterpillar dealer parts department requires the precise balancing of opposing metrics: keeping high target availability while simultaneously driving down excess inventory. This challenge is compounded by the fact that the majority of line items are slow-moving. Without an intelligent system, managing add-to-stock suggestions and hitting planned order percentage goals quickly becomes less like inventory management and more like a high-stakes gamble—where wrong orders today result in high excess and poor turns tomorrow.
Fortunately, the ICS Planned Order module provides the strategic intelligence needed to successfully navigate this environment, turning guesswork into a predictable, data-driven process.
Predicting the Balance: Precision Forecasting 90 Days Out
The core of the Planned Order module’s success lies in its ability to overcome the limitations of traditional, reactive order point calculations. The Planned Order module achieves a proactive balance in two ways.
- Advanced Algorithms: Utilizing the sophisticated tournament method forecasting algorithm combined with ICS’s proprietary slow-moving algorithm to accurately project future sales.
- Strategic Purchase Recommendations: It pairs these future sales projections with your current orders and current inventory levels across the entire dealership. This results in an accurate order recommendation for what you will most likely need to buy 90 days from today. The ICS Events module can further improve results by integrating with your Service team’s planning (e.g., scheduled rebuilds) and associated bills of materials.
By focusing on this longer horizon, the module ensures you purchase only what is truly necessary to hit your target availability, effectively preventing the initial creation of excess inventory.
Maintaining Compliance and Avoiding Double Ordering
A key risk in inventory management is the lack of coordination between different systems, leading to double ordering and compliance failures. The ICS Planned Order module addresses this with seamless integration.
- Harmonized with PIC: The module’s proprietary algorithms complement the PIC Daily Stock Order. It generates daily planned orders that are integrated with PIC recommendations, effectively preventing the confusion and financial risk of double ordering and allowing you to stay 100% compliant with PIC recomendations.
- Automated and Seamless Flow: Order recommendations can be placed as either FDOs (Future Dated Orders) or CPROs (Certified Professional Rebuild Orders) and are seamlessly transmitted to Caterpillar through your ERP, eliminating manual data entry and reducing the risk of human error.
Proactive Excess Stock Management: Canceling the Mistake
Even with the best forecasting, circumstances change: forecasts shift, or returns occur. The module provides a crucial safety net to mitigate these financial risks and address excess before it hits your balance sheet.
- Open PO Cancellation Report: The Planned Order module includes a dedicated report to address excess stock on open FDO/CPRO POs less than 45 days old. If future needs change, this tool shows you precisely which open orders can be canceled immediately, stopping the excess before the parts are even received.
- Strategic Redistribution: For existing excess inventory, the ICS Excess Stock module can be leveraged alongside the Planned Order module to centralize or distribute excess to the dealership locations most likely to consume the stock next. This proactive action improves your odds of preventing backorders or lost sales while significantly reducing capital tied up in slow-moving stock.
The goal is simple: meet your excess targets, maintain high availability, and secure your profits without the stressful gamble. The ICS Planned Order module empowers your inventory management team to transition from transaction processors to strategic analysts.
If you want to get ahead of the Parts Excellence metrics and ensure your inventory capital is working efficiently, contact us today and let a member of our team show you how ICS provides the strategic intelligence needed to successfully navigate this environment, turning guesswork into a predictable, data-driven process.
Ready to learn more?
If you want to get ahead of opposing operational metrics and ensure your inventory capital is working efficiently, complete the form below and let a member of our team show you how ICS provides the strategic intelligence needed to successfully navigate this environment, turning guesswork into a predictable, data-driven process.