System and method for root cause analysis and early warning of inventory problems

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• accessing data describing inventory policy parameters of a supply chain network, the supply chain network comprising two or more supply chain entities, the two or more supply chain entities supply one or more items to satisfy a demand and comprise an inventory;
• accessing data describing one or more demand patterns of the supply chain network, data describing one or more replenishment patterns of the supply chain network and data describing one or more business rules;
• analyzing the one or more demand patterns of the supply chain network;
• quantifying a deviation between a forecasted demand of the one or more items and an actual demand of the one or more items;
• analyzing the one or more replenishment patterns of the supply chain network;
• updating the inventory policy parameters for the one or more items according to the one or more demand patterns, the one or more replenishment patterns and one or more business rules;
• publishing the updated inventory policy parameters to one or more supply chain replenishment planning engines for each of the one or more items;
• assigning coding values to the one or more items according to inventory levels of the two or more supply chain entities;
• generating one or more supply chain replenishment planning engines, an executable inventory replenishment plan in accordance with the updated inventory policy parameters;
• and
• responsive to the executable inventory replenishment plan, automatically adjusting, by at least one of the two or more supply chain entities, the inventory levels based, at least in part, on the updated inventory policy parameters.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodied with software, the software when executed using one or more computers is programmed to:

• access data describing inventory policy parameters of a supply chain network, the supply chain network comprising two or more supply chain entities, the two or more supply chain entities supply one or more items to satisfy a demand and comprise an inventory;
• access data describing one or more demand patterns of the supply chain network, data describing one or more replenishment patterns of the supply chain network and data describing one or more business rules;
• analyze the one or more demand patterns of the supply chain network;
• quantify a deviation between a forecasted demand of the one or more items and an actual demand of the one or more items;
• analyze the one or more replenishment patterns of the supply chain network;
• update the inventory policy parameters for the one or more items according to the one or more demand patterns, the one or more replenishment patterns and one or more business rules;
• publish the optimized inventory policy parameters to one or more supply chain replenishment engines for each of the one or more items;
• assign coding values to the one or more items according to inventory levels of the two or more supply chain entities;
• generate an executable inventory replenishment plan in accordance with the updated inventory policy parameters;
• and
• responsive to the executable inventory replenishment plan, automatically adjust the inventory levels of at least one of the two or more supply chain entities based, at least in part, on the updated inventory policy parameters.