{"id":2939,"date":"2015-04-29T15:42:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T19:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/?p=2939"},"modified":"2018-03-21T13:04:11","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T17:04:11","slug":"forecast-value-added-fva-interview-series-4-moen-incorporated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demand-planning.com\/2015\/04\/29\/forecast-value-added-fva-interview-series-4-moen-incorporated\/","title":{"rendered":"Forecast Value Added (FVA) \u2013 Interview Series 4 – Moen Incorporated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Erin<\/a>

Erin Marchant<\/p><\/div>\n

This month\u2019s interview is with Erin Marchant, Senior Analyst in Demand Management at Moen, Incorporated.<\/p>\n

Erin has over ten years of varied experience in Supply Chain, from strategic sourcing to material planning, production scheduling, and demand management. She is also Moen\u2019s Demand Planning<\/strong><\/a> and Analytical Systems Power User. Erin is a graduate of Heidelberg University, and also earned her MBA from Ashland University and M.S. in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management from Kent State University.<\/p>\n

Moen is in the early stages of an FVA pilot, and Erin shares her experience to date.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/span><\/strong>: When did you first hear about FVA, and how did you introduce the FVA approach to your management? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Erin<\/span><\/strong>: Our new Director of Demand Management<\/strong><\/a> brought the concept of FVA to us early in his tenure. He had learned about FVA from your book and articles, and in turn asked my boss and me to try to pilot the concept with our small segment of forecast responsibility.<\/p>\n

Since our Director is the one that introduced the idea to us, we didn\u2019t have to get buy-in from our organization. However, there is a need to get commitment from our business unit partners. In our pilot, we led the conversation to show the business unit why we wanted to start analyzing this data and the potential benefit of its measurement on the forecast process.<\/p>\n

One pivotal element of FVA that we have had to reiterate time and time again at all levels of the organization is that FVA is not a measurement of who has the \u201cright\u201d forecast. FVA is a measurement of the value added at each step of the forecast process. Restating that fact constantly helps keep the discussion from devolving into an \u201cus versus them\u201d proposition.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/span><\/strong>: Was the data needed to do FVA analysis readily available? Or did you have to start collecting it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erin<\/span><\/strong>: Yes and no. We have always collected the data for each layer (or, in the APO-DP world, \u201ckey figure\u201d) of forecast data in our BI systems, so it was possible to determine the value of each step of the forecast. However, until the introduction of FVA, we had never been particularly disciplined about what kind of information went into each key figure. We have now assigned a purpose to each key figure, so that when the data is transferred to our BI systems it is very easy to determine FVA for each process step.<\/p>\n

Mike<\/span><\/strong>: What are the steps in your forecasting process?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erin<\/span><\/strong>: Process steps are:<\/p>\n