Forecasting Demand for Bundles and Assemblies in Erply

Common Challenge

Forecasting demand of sellable goods is hard enough—but when those goods are bundles (secondary products with no stock) or assemblies (secondary products that consume components when built), the complexity explodes:

• Bundles: demand is really for the components. If sparklers, cannons, and snappers are sold as both singles and in a “New Year’s Kit,” the forecast must account for both channels and prevent double-counting.

• Assemblies: inventory only exists if stock has been built ahead of time. Without a clear forecast, you risk either under-assembling (stockouts) or over-assembling (waste, tied-up capital).

• Procurement blind spots: buyers often see only finished-goods demand, not the component-level requirements that actually drive purchase orders. Or the other way around. One may look at component statistics, and consequently losing the customer touch.

In short: without a system that ties sellable demand → component needs → purchase actions, bundle and assembly planning quickly goes off track.

What Can You Do About It

The BI brings forecasting and Erply’s operational logic together:

1. Forecast demand for sellable SKUs

• The Demand Forecast projects expected sales, whether the product is a bundle, an assembly, or a simple SKU. You can easily asses sales for both "New Year's Kit" and snappers separately without losing the customer-facing perspective.

2. Decompose into component requirements

• For bundles, the forecast is exploded into component-level needs each time a bundle unit is projected.

• For assemblies, the forecast shows how many finished assemblies must be built, and therefore how many components must be consumed in advance.

This ensures the system always translates “customer-facing demand” into “supply-facing requirements.”

3. Net requirements against stock and POs

• Current stock on hand and open supplier POs are deducted, showing true forward gaps.

4. Generate draft purchase orders directly in Erply

• One step beyond reporting: you can convert component shortfalls into draft POs automatically. That closes the loop from forecast → requirement → action.

How It Works

The workflow consists of two steps.

1. Demand Forecast: analyst-facing, SKU-level demand inputs with adjustments for baseline, seasonality, growth, and overrides. It also supports seeding of new products with no sales hisotry. This is where you should spend most of your time: making sure the demand aligns with your marketing campaigns and business plan.

2. BOM Decomposer: expands demand into detailed component needs, netted against stock and open POs. Two levels is required when you make bundles of bundles or assemblies. The requirements calculation is fully automated, current stock levels and incoming purchases are incorporated to prevent overestimating. You role here is simple: review the recommendations and confirm what needs to be purchased.

Erply Integration

• Bundles: treated as secondary products, stock always drawn from components at sale. Forecast report mirrors this by rolling bundle demand into component requirements using recipes.

• Assemblies: stock exists only when registered. The forecast shows assembly requirements, and the system ensures component availability before builds.

• Draft POs: from the component forecast view, planners can push shortages directly into Erply as draft purchase orders, ready for review and confirmation.

Why It Matters

• Consistency: forecasting logic aligns perfectly with Erply’s operational treatment of bundles and assemblies.

• Transparency: both sellable demand and component needs are visible in one place.

• Actionability: planners don’t just see the gap—they can push draft POs straight into Erply to cover it.

• Efficiency: no spreadsheets to calculate bundle explosions or assembly build needs; the tooling does it natively.

In practice, this integration means your sales forecasts aren’t just numbers on a chart—they become procurement-ready actions that keep components in stock, assemblies built on time, and bundles ready to sell.