Guided tour
This page has short videos for day-to-day activities in frepple.
Demand Forecasting
Anticipate your supply needs and let your planners and sales teams work together.
Inventory Planning
Plan your inventory and compute safety stocks, reorders frequencies and quantities while following inventory policies.
Production Planning
Review and edit your production schedule on frePPLe’s interactive Gantt chart, the Plan Editor.
Demand forecasting
How can I upload my forecast values?
1) Navigate to Forecast Report in the Sales menu.
2) Export the forecast report by clicking on the down arrow icon in the upper right corner.
3) Populate the file you have just exported with your own forecast data.
4) Import your file back into “Forecast Report” to override the forecast in frePPLe.
How can I forecast a new item?
1) Navigate to Parameters in the Admin menu and change the value of parameter forecast.populateForecastTable from true to false.
2) Navigate to Forecast in the Sales menu and click on the + icon in the upper right corner to add a new forecast record.
3) Navigate to Execute in the Admin menu and click on Launch plan.
4) Navigate to Forecast Report in the Sales menu and filter for your new item.
5) Adjust the forecast by setting customed values in the Forecast Override row.
6) Navigate to Parameters in the Admin menu and change the value of parameter forecast.populateForecastTable from true to false.
7) Navigate to Execute in the Admin menu and click on Launch plan.
How can I adjust the forecast for a discontinued item?
1) Navigate to Forecast in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for your discontinued item(s).
3) Update the field in the Method column from Automatic to Manual. frePPLe stops forecasting them automatically.
4) Save your changes.
How can I filter out exceptional sales (outliers)?
1) Navigate to Problem Report in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for items whose “Name equals outlier.”
3) Navigate to Forecast Editor and edit the outliers. You will spot them thanks to a warning sign in the total orders row.
How can I compare my own forecast with the forecast computed by frePPLe?
1) Navigate to Forecast Report in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the table icon in the upper right corner.
3) The Forecast baseline row contains the forecast computed by frePPLe.
4) The Forecast total row contains your forecast if you have provided an override. Otherwise, it’s equal to the Forecast baseline.
5) The Forecast override is only populated if you have provided an override for that exact intersection of item-location-customer.
How can I share the forecast with my sales team?
1) Navigate to Forecast Report in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the table icon in the upper right corner.
3) Click on the wrench key icon and select the crosses (rows) you wish to export.
4) Optionally, add a filter if you don’t want to export the entire dataset.
5) Click on the down arrow icon in the upper right corner to export the results into an Excel file.
Where can I check the forecast accuracy?
1) Navigate to Forecast Editor and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
2) In the parameters frame, you can find the estimated forecast error percentage.
Inventory planning
How can I identify and review items with stockout risk?
1) Navigate to Inventory Planning in the Inventory menu.
2) Remove all grouping and segment.
3) Click on the Inventory Status column to sort results by inventory status ascending.
4) The cells in red are more likely to face stockouts.
How can I detect purchase orders that need expediting?
1) Navigate to Purchase Orders in the Purchasing menu.
2) Click on the Inventory Status column to sort the orders by inventory status ascending.
3) The cells in red need expediting.
4) The safety stock of the item-location they replenish will be either partially or totally consumed in one lead time from current date.
How can I apply a fixed safety stock to one item-location?
1) Navigate to Inventory Planning Parameters in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for one specific item and location combination.
3) Input the same value in the safety stock minimum and maximum quantity columns for a fixed safety stock quantity.
4) Save your changes.
How can I apply a reorder quantity (ROQ) rule to one item-location?
1) Navigate to Inventory Planning Parameters in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for the item-location you wish to edit.
3) You can alos create a new record using the + icon.
4) Set a minimum and/or maximum ROQ rule and save.
Can I define the same inventory policies for a group of item-locations?
1) Navigate to Segments in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the + icon in the upper right corner to add a new segment.
3) Navigate to “Business Rules” in the Inventory menu.
4) Add a new business rule to the segment you’ve just created.
How can I review the inventory situation of an item across my network?
1) Navigate to Inventory Report in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for the item-location you want to check.
3) Click on the clock icon and select day as bucket size, then set it to 1 month after plan current date.
4) Click on the wrench key icon and select the crosses (rows) you wish to display.
5) The report contains the current inventory on hand and its evolution in the next 30 days.
Where can I find stock excess situations?
1) Navigate to Problem Report in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for Name equals material excess.
How can I identify inventory rebalancing requests ?
1) Navigate to Distribution Orders in the Inventory menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for Destination equals name of warehouse or DC.
Production planning
How can I update my plan when a machine breaks down?
1) Navigate to Resources in the Capacity menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for your machine.
3) If the machine maximum calendar field is not populated, simply set the maximum field to 0.
4) If the maximum calendar is populated, edit the calendar and make sure the default value is 0 and all the calendar buckets also have a value of 0.
5) Relaunch the plan.
How can I change the assigned resource for a manufacturing order (MO)?
1) Navigate to Manufacturing Orders in the Manufacturing menu and select the manufacturing order (MO) you wish to edit.
2) In the bottom panes, look for the Resources widget.
3) Select the new resource you wish to assign to the MO and save.
How can I detect manufacturing orders that need expediting?
1) Navigate to Manufacturing Orders in the Manufacturing menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and click on Reset to remove all filters.
3) Click on the Inventory Status column to sort the orders by inventory status ascending.
4) The cells in red show the orders that need to be expedited.
How can I prioritize a sales order over another?
1) Navigate to Sales Orders in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for the sales orders you want to prioritize.
3) Update the priority column and save. Note that top priority is 1 in frePPLe.
How can I input my operators' shifts or holidays?
1) Navigate to Calendars in the Manufacturing menu.
2) Click on the + icon in the upper right corner and add a new calendar for your operator with default value = 0 (for instance: Calendar for Antonio).
3) In Calendars Buckets, add another calendar bucket line with value = 1 for each availability of the operator.
4) For a shift, input a start date in the past and an end date far in the future, then select the days, start and end time of the shift.
5) For holidays, simply set the start date and end date of the period.
6) Navigate to Resources in the Capacity menu and input the calendar’s name in the Available column.
How can I spot and review late orders?
1) Navigate to Sales Orders screen in the Sales menu.
2) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for status not equal closed.
3) Click on the Delay column to sort the orders by delay descending.
4) For each late order, drill down into details by clicking on the pointing triangle in the Name column.
5) Then, pick the “Why short or late?” tab in the upper right corner to check why it’s late.
How can I track down bottleneck resources?
1) Navigate to Resource report in the Capacity menu.
2) Click on the clock icon in the upper right corner to adjust the buckets.
3) Click on the Utilization column to sort the resources by utilization descending.
...and their unconstrained capacity requirements?
1) Navigate to execute in the Admin menu.
2) Execute a constrained plan but make sure that the capacity constrained is unchecked.
3) Navigate to Resource report in the Capacity menu and review capacity consumption.
How can I measure the impact of rush orders?
1) Navigate to Execute in the Admin menu.
2) Pick the Scenario management tab in the Launch tasks menu.
3) Select a Scenario and Copy default into selected scenarios. Then click on Copy.
4) In the dropdown section in the upper right corner, select the scenario you’ve just created.
5) Navigate to “Sales Orders” in the Sales menu.
6) Click on the search icon in the upper right corner and filter for the rush order.
7) Update the priority column to make the order top priority (1) and save.
8) Navigate to “Execute” in the Admin menu and click on Launch to re-execute the plan.
9) To review the impact of the rush order, compare your scenario’s delivery dates with your production environment.
How precisely can I quote a delivery date for a new customer order?
1) Navigate to the Quotes under the Sales menu.
2) Populate the required fields in the Quote Form.
3) Click on the inquiry button and check in the Operations widget the proposed end date corresponding to the first promise date for the sales order.
How can I optimize my plan in the GANTT chart plan editor?
Navigate to Plan Editor in the Manufacturing menu and select an order on the GANTT chart.
From there, you can:
1) modify the start/end time of an order by dragging and dropping the block or editing dates in the Manufacturing Order widget.
2) Pick an alternate operation when possible.
3) Pick an alternate resource when possible.
Any of the above change will trigger a plan update, frePPLe will make sure that the plan remains feasible.