Prevost Car Chooses SmartForecasts To Manage Demand

Prevost Car Inc., a manufacturer of motor coaches and bus shells, needed help managing its aftermarket parts operation, which is dominated by intermittent, slow-moving demand. Following a two-year study of ways to improve inventory management and customer service, the Sainte-Claire, Quebec-based company selected SmartForecasts Enterprise, a demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization software, to help manage its parts operations at seven warehouses in North America. "With most of our parts having intermittent demand, it was complex to manage our inventory," says Dave Gilbert, Prevost director of logistics and leader of the study team. "Because solving intermittent demand is so important to us, we really emphasized it in our evaluations." SmartForecasts, the flagship product of Belmont, Mass.-based Smart Software Inc., includes intermittent demand forecasting technology. Prevost will integrate SmartForecasts directly with its SAP enterprise resource planning system and deploy the new integrated system before year's end, says Smart Software. Prevost will employ the integrated system to create the final replenishment plan, improve inventory allocation and help manufacturing operations produce the appropriate number of parts to meet customer demand.