How to Enter Forecasts and Firm Suggestions in EDGEBIC

Two screens do the work of demand forecast manufacturing software in EDGEBIC by User Solutions: the forecast pane, where you tell the system what demand is coming, and the calendar row, where you convert its replenishment advice into a real build order. This post is the procedure for both, plus the product settings that have to be right first or nothing will ever be suggested.

For the reasoning behind the sizing and the trigger logic, read forecasting and replenishment explained first. For the forecasting method itself, demand forecasting for manufacturing covers approaches; what follows assumes you already have numbers to enter.

Step 1: Configure the Product

A forecast against a badly configured product produces a correct projection that never suggests anything. Get this right first.

Open Products, find the item, click Edit, and scroll to the Inventory Planning section. Set:

Two of these fail silently when wrong. A make-to-stock product with the stocked flag off looks configured and does nothing. A yield of zero or above one breaks the sizing calculation. Both are caught by the integrity report and both are usually import defaults, which is covered in inventory tracking mistakes.

Set safety stock below your reorder trigger. Safety stock is the level at which you want to be told; the trigger is the level at which the build should start. Making them equal removes the cushion the two-level design exists to give you.

If you are choosing between the two trigger methods, the practical rule is simple: use reorder point when you always order the same amount, and min-max when you want the balance to live inside a band.

Step 2: Enter the Forecast

Click Inventory in the left navigation, select the product from the dropdown at the top, and set the Bucket picker to the width you forecast in (Day, Week or Period). Then open the Forecast pane.

1. Set New Forecast Date to the first day of the target bucket. For weekly buckets that is the Monday.
2. Choose New Forecast Type: Sales, Production or Consumption.
3. Enter New Forecast Qty.
4. Click Add Forecast.

The projection reloads immediately, and you should see the forecast demand column change in the matching bucket. If it does not, three things are worth checking: whether the date landed in the bucket you intended, whether the bucket width you were viewing matches the one you entered against, and whether the product is make-to-order (in which case forecasts are stored and displayed but ignored by the calculation).

Types are additive within a bucket. A sales forecast of 150 and a production forecast of 30 for the same week give 180 units of forecast demand, not 150. That is intended, since each type is independent demand from a different origin, but it also means two people entering the same expectation under different types will double your plan. Agree ownership of types before you start.

Step 3: Edit, Replace or Remove a Forecast

To change a quantity, re-enter the same product, date, bucket width and type with the new number. The write is an upsert keyed on those four values, so a matching row is updated in place. You cannot accidentally create a competing duplicate for the same bucket and type.

Careful with the type field. Changing the type while keeping the date creates a new row, because type is part of the key. Correcting a sales forecast by re-entering it as a production forecast leaves the original sales row intact and adds 100% on top of it.

To remove a forecast, select its row in the forecast grid and click Delete Forecast. This is a hard delete: the row is gone, immediately, with no undo. Re-entering it is the only way back.

To clear every forecast for a product, use the data clear route rather than deleting rows one at a time. It is an administrative operation rather than a button on this pane, so ask your administrator to run it.

To edit a forecast from the matrix, open the on-hand matrix, switch the Lens to Forecast, and double-click the cell for the product and date. The forecast editor opens with the current value. This route edits the sales type only, so use the forecast pane for production and consumption entries.

Step 4: Read the Suggestion Before You Act on It

Go back to the Calendar pane and find rows with a non-zero suggested quantity. Before firming, read the row across so you know what you are agreeing to.

• Projected balance tells you how deep the shortfall is. A negative number means the raw need is larger than the target level, because the deficit has to be covered as well as the refill.
• Gross requirements tells you what demand drove it, after the consumption rule reconciled forecast against firm orders.
• Below safety tells you whether this is a genuine breach or a bucket sitting just under the trigger.
• Suggested is the quantity after the target calculation, lot rounding and yield inflation, in that order.

If the suggested figure looks larger than expected, the usual explanation is lot rounding followed by yield inflation. A raw need of 425 with fixed lots of 150 rounds to 450, and a yield of 0.95 takes that to 474. Both steps are visible in the product settings you configured in step one.

Full column-by-column reading of the row, plus the six matrix lenses, is in how to read the projection.

Step 5: Firm the Suggestion

Select the row and click Firm.

One manufacturing order is created. Verify it before moving on: open Manufacturing Orders and filter to the replenishment demand source or the replenishment job-number prefix. The new order should show:

• Build to Inventory set, so completion will post a receipt
• Quantity equal to the suggested quantity rounded up to a whole number
• Due Date equal to the bucket start you firmed from
• Demand Source recorded as replenishment
• Status scheduled, with no actual dates yet

That last point catches people out. The order exists and has no schedule. It has not been placed on a work center, it has taken no capacity, and it contributes nothing to the projection until it does.

Do not firm the same bucket twice. There is no cross-check that stops you, and the suggestion does not clear at firm time, so a second click creates a second order for the same need. If you suspect a double firm, filter the order list by the replenishment prefix and look for two orders with the same due date and quantity.

If you disagree with the suggested figure, firm a different quantity. The suggestion is advice. Firming a smaller amount and letting the projection show you what it leaves behind is a perfectly reasonable way to work, especially when your real lot size is set by a tool or a pallet rather than by arithmetic.

Step 6: Schedule, Then Watch the Loop Close

Run scheduling. The firmed order competes for machine time exactly like a customer job, respecting setups, shift calendars and constraints, and it appears on the same Gantt as everything else.

Refresh the inventory calendar afterwards. Three things should have changed:

1. The order appears as a scheduled receipt in the bucket containing its expected completion.
2. The projected balance rises from that bucket onward.
3. The suggestion for that bucket clears, because the balance is now above the trigger.

When the floor finishes the job and someone marks it complete, a receipt posts to the inventory ledger and on-hand rises for real. From then the stock is available for netting, meaning a later demand for the same part can be satisfied from it rather than triggering another build. See how EDGEBIC nets demand against stock.

Cancelling a Firmed Order

Plans change. Delete or cancel the order through the order editor, and any ledger entries pegged to it are reversed before it goes, with the reversal rows staying on the record. On the next projection refresh the scheduled receipt disappears and the suggestion for that bucket reappears, which is the system correctly returning to the position it was in before you firmed.

A Sensible Monthly Rhythm

Enter or import the new forecast month at the start of the cycle. Review the matrix on the suggested lens to see which products need decisions. Work the shortlist product by product on the calendar, firm what you agree with, and run scheduling once at the end rather than after each firm. Then check the matrix again on the on-hand lens to confirm the red cells have cleared.

The traps that ambush this rhythm, from duplicate firms to forecasts entered against the wrong bucket width, are collected in forecasting and replenishment mistakes. For how everything connects, see the inventory and planning guide and the complete guide to EDGEBIC.