5. Effective elaboration

To make the aforementioned collaboration more effectively to elaborate the material planning proposals, this chapter presents a generic form for the group decision participants to discuss with. Table 2 illustrates a sample form for the forecasting. The form consists of two portions, the target product and its critical components.

In this sample form, the product PD portion, which belongs to CA category, currently has PI units in stock, its last period's turnover rate (Δout=Δin) is PT, the maximal can-build quantity is BQ units under current on hand material status, previous forecast accuracy rates, calculated by Fprevious <sup>F</sup>dactual � �=Fdactual , were AM, AS, AC, AP, and AF, and the forecasted quantities are FM, FS, FC, FP, and FF.


Table 2. Material forecast sample form. Smart Material Planning Optimization Problem Analysis DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.84614

The critical components section contains four major parts—MR1⋯4, inventory levels are denoted by MI1⋯4, turnover rates denoted by MT1⋯4, and the suppliers of critical components are denoted by MS1⋯<sup>4</sup> respectively. It is worth noting that all the figures in the form depend on the information capability of firm, especially the BQ quantity which must be iteratively calculated during the process.

The final agreed decision on the forecast of the product can be systematically measured by Formula (5). The outer summation adds up the forecast of the five groups and multiplies by their wi weights, respectively. The inner summation adds up the group's forecast decision. Each group has the pi participants, and there is also a θ<sup>j</sup> weight for every participant's forecasti,j quantity:

$$Forecast\_{final} = \sum\_{i=1}^{5} \left[ w\_i \sum\_{j=1}^{p\_i} \left( \theta\_j \* forecast\_{i,j} \right) \right] \tag{5}$$

The reason why previous forecast accuracy rates were excluded from Forecastfinal is because the participants will adjust their forecast rates accordingly, based on assigned weights by their group leaders. The purpose of this form is to give a template for the group discussion; it can help the participants make their forecasts not relying on the hunches but based on the fact of tangible numbers.
