4flow turn is based on the definition of an inventory and delivery frequency matrix. These matrices reflect the main driving forces of the applied inventory management policies as well as material control parameters and delivery frequencies.

In order to optimally determine inventory levels, safety stocks, forecasting methods and inventory management policies the customer-specific influence factors will be determined. Criteria for the inventory matrix are:

• Article-specific factors such as value, importance, demand variability etc.
• Supplier-specific factors such as reliability, order cycle-time etc.
• Company-specific factors such as forecast variability, inventory level accuracy, availability of storage space etc.
• Transport-specific factors such as delivery frequency, delivery time, transport modes etc.

The delivery frequency matrix contains company-specific criteria in order to optimally determine the applied parameters as for example delivery schedule, delivery frequency or delivery cycle time. The criteria for the delivery frequency matrix are:

• Article-specific factors such as value, importance and demand variability
• Company-specific factors such as loading points, capacity of receiving areas, delivery mode etc.
• Supplier-specific factors such as transport volume, transport mode, total value of transported goods etc.

The selected criteria to allocate articles and suppliers within the matrices will either be computed directly within 4flow turn on the basis of transactional data or be imported from one of the IT-systems.

Back to the 4flow turn overview.

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