How to Read the Inventory Projection in EDGEBIC, Column by Column

To read an inventory projection with confidence you need two screens and one habit: the calendar for depth on one product, the matrix for breadth across the catalog, and the discipline of tracing any surprising figure back to its input. This post walks both screens in EDGEBIC by User Solutions column by column, lens by lens.

If the arithmetic behind the numbers is unfamiliar, projected available balance explained covers the roll-forward first. What follows assumes it and concentrates on the reading.

Opening the Calendar

Click Inventory in the left navigation. The view loads on the first product alphabetically with a fourteen-bucket horizon and five panes: Calendar, Forecast, Adjustments, Transaction History and the on-hand matrix.

Three controls sit above the grid and drive everything:

• Product dropdown. Type to filter or scroll to select. Changing it rebuilds the projection and refreshes every pane.
• Bucket. Day, Week or Period (a calendar month). Changing it re-runs the projection immediately.
• Bucket Count. How many buckets to show, defaulting to fourteen. It counts buckets, not days, so fourteen with weekly buckets is a fourteen-week view.

If the product dropdown is empty, the product list failed to load rather than the projection failing. Check the status bar before you investigate anything else.

The Calendar Row, Column by Column

Each row is one time bucket, and it reads left to right as a small balance sheet.

Two of these mislead if you read them casually.

Gross requirements is not forecast plus firm. It is the result of the product's consumption rule reconciling the two so the same demand is not counted twice. Under the default greater-of rule, forecast 60 against firm 40 gives 60, not 100. The alternative minus-consumed rule behaves differently once firm exceeds forecast. Both are worked through in how forecast consumption works.

Suggested is not supply. The suggested quantity is displayed but deliberately excluded from later buckets' balances, so consecutive shortfall buckets each show their own suggestion. Only firming one into a real order turns it into a scheduled receipt.

The Verification That Catches Most Errors

One check finds most misreadings: the opening figure on any row should equal the projected balance on the row above it. If it does not, you are looking at a history bucket boundary, where the calculation switches from realised ledger movement to the planning model.

That switch is intentional. Buckets whose end date falls entirely before today move only by what the ledger actually recorded, with planned supply and demand ignored, which keeps the historical portion of the calendar truthful. Set the horizon start to a past date and you can compare plan against reality directly, which is the fastest way to find out whether your forecasts are systematically high, low, or badly timed.

Reading the KPI Strip First

Four cards sit above the rows, and reading them first saves time:

• Current on-hand. The authoritative ledger sum. When any other figure disagrees with reality, this is the one to trust.
• Days of cover. On-hand divided by average demand per day across the horizon. Blank when there is no demand in the window, which is correct rather than broken.
• Projected stockout. The first bucket where the balance drops below safety stock. The date to work back from.
• Below safety and suggested. How many buckets are flagged and the total suggested quantity.

If projected stockout is blank and the below-safety count is zero, this product does not need you today. Move on.

The Matrix: Every Product at Once

Open the On-Hand Matrix pane. It builds a grid with one row per active product and one column per date bucket, with the product name and safety stock pinned at the left.

Toolbar controls:

• Lens. What each cell shows. Six options, covered next.
• Start Date and End Date. The window. Column count is derived from the span, and very wide daily ranges hit a cap with a status message telling you so. Widen the bucket rather than the range.
• Find. Filters rows by product name as you type, with no database round trip.
• Filter dropdown. Lists products that have production schedules. For a product with no schedule, type in Find instead.
• Refresh. Reloads from the database.

An aggregate strip sits above the grid: total on-hand across all products, how many products have any future bucket below safety stock, total suggested quantity, and the product count. The below-safety count ignores history buckets, so stale data cannot inflate it.

The Six Lenses

The lens selector changes what every cell shows. Switching lenses re-pivots data already in memory rather than re-querying, which makes it instant and also means it will not pick up someone else's posting from a minute ago. Refresh for that.

Color follows meaning rather than a single scheme. On the on-hand lens, red marks below safety and amber marks near it. On the ATP and transactions lenses, red marks negative. On the forecast, net requirement and suggested lenses, amber marks the presence of demand or a suggestion.

The suggested lens is the one that changes a planner's week. Switch to it, scan for amber, and you have a prioritized replenishment list across the whole catalog without opening a single product.

Drilling Into a Cell

Double-clicking a cell does one of three things depending on the active lens, which is worth knowing before you click.

On most lenses a detail dialog opens with the full bucket breakdown for that product and date: opening, scheduled receipts, forecast demand, firm demand, gross requirements, projected balance, safety stock, both ATP figures and the suggested quantity. This is the fastest route from "that cell looks wrong" to "here is which input is wrong".

On the forecast lens the forecast editor opens instead, so you can correct the number in place. It edits the sales forecast type only; production and consumption forecasts are entered from the calendar's Forecast pane.

On the on-hand lens the movement dialog opens, letting you post a receipt, issue or adjustment against that product and date. That route is covered in how to record receipts, issues and adjustments.

A Ten-Minute Review Routine

This is the routine that makes the screens pay for themselves.

1. Open the matrix, click Refresh, and set the range to your planning horizon.
2. Switch the lens to On-hand and scan for red. Note the products and the first red date.
3. Switch to Suggested and note which of those products have a suggestion and how large.
4. For each one, double-click the first flagged cell and read the breakdown. Is the shortfall driven by forecast, by firm demand, or by a receipt that moved?
5. Open the calendar for the two or three that matter, confirm the story on the full row, and firm the suggestion where you agree with it.
6. Switch the matrix to ATP before you talk to sales, so the promise conversation starts from cumulative promise capacity rather than a stock number.

Step six matters more than it looks, and the reasoning behind those two ATP columns is in available-to-promise in EDGEBIC. The misreadings worth knowing about in advance are collected in projection and ATP mistakes.

Where This Sits

The projection is the planning surface between the inventory ledger below it and the finite capacity schedule beyond it. It reads real movements, shows a dated forward picture, and hands firmed decisions to the engine that has to find machine time for them. The full connection is mapped in the inventory and planning guide, and the platform tour is in the complete guide to EDGEBIC.

For the category background on what inventory data is supposed to do for a manufacturer, inventory management for manufacturers is the generic treatment. To see these grids against your own catalog, bring an item export and a month of demand to a demo and ask User Solutions to load it.