Kiira Consulting

Stockouts and excess stock, in the same month?

It usually isn't the forecast. It's where your stock sits. Place buffers on a seven-node supply chain, run 90 days of demand, and see what your decisions do to service, stock and cash.

Run the simulator How it works

Free. Runs in your browser, phone included. About ten minutes.

Place your buffersFinished goods only
The simulator's supply chain network: three purchased parts, a work-in-progress part, an assembly step at resource Z and two finished products, with buffers placed on the finished products only
Most teams start by buffering only the finished goods. In the simulator that design keeps the same service, but carries about 14 times the stock it needs.

What the simulator tends to teach

The rules are simple. The results usually surprise people who have planned supply chains for years.

Where you hold stock matters more than how much you hold.

A buffer in the wrong place costs money and protects nothing. A few in the right places protect the whole network.

Unprotected lead time hides inside your buffers.

Leave the middle of the network unprotected and every finished product has to cover the longest upstream path. In the case network that's 40 days instead of 2.

Sometimes the best buffer is no buffer.

If customers will wait and the parts are protected, you can build to order and hold no finished stock at all.

How it works

Four steps, each one on its own screen. You can change your design and run it again as often as you like.

  1. Learn the network

    Three purchased parts, a part sold straight to a service market, a skilled assembly step and two finished products. Note the lead times and where variability comes from.

  2. Place your buffers

    Decide where to hold stock using the six DDMRP positioning criteria, from customer tolerance time to protecting the critical operation.

  3. Size them and run 90 days

    Set each buffer's average daily usage and factors, watch the zones update, then run 90 days with demand spikes and late suppliers.

  4. Read the results

    Service across three markets, buffer health, stock tied up and a scored debrief. Compare runs, and see the reference design after your third run.

Now picture it with your own products.

Kiira Consulting helps South African manufacturers plan to actual demand instead of forecasts. We implement Demand Driven MRP and Demand Driven Operating Models, and we're an Intuiflow partner.

Our DDMRP Diagnostic Workshop looks at your own products, lead times and demand, and shows where buffers belong and what that would mean for service and working capital.

Book a diagnostic workshop kiiraconsulting.com