jb-x presents the order wizard "Orderbob"

During the s&f Symposium 2019, jb-x business solutions GmbH presented the functionality "Orderbob" for the first time. The "order assistant" reminds, calculates and schedules.

When and how many pieces of an item do I need? Do I still need or has the colleague already ordered for the department? Who is our supplier for this item? Orderbob reminds you to trigger the order, calculates order quantities and provides order suggestions.

The above questions arise again and again in connection with procurement. Especially in care or hotel companies, where work is done in shifts, where colleagues see each other briefly at best during shift changes, or in vacation periods, where colleagues order who normally do not do so, or also the colleagues who are entrusted with purchasing and do not know for each item when what should be procured again, could soon no longer want to do without the order base agent Orderbob.

In many industries, system-supported materials planning is used for this purpose, which supports buyers in ordering on the basis of parameters such as reorder point, order size, rounding value or maximum stock level by calculating order proposals with the help of these values. In the hotel and care sector, this type of materials planning can only be used to a limited extent because no in-house materials management systems are maintained due to the effort involved.

For a few volume-intensive product groups (catering in the hotel and care sector or incontinence in the care sector), there are supplier-operated web stores, which then also only offer support for the part of the procurement that can be covered by the supplier's range. Many other product groups in the procurement portfolio are not supported. The hotel industry also struggles with strong fluctuations in demand due to varying occupancy rates, which would actually require "occupancy-based disposition" and lead to a constant adjustment of disposition values. Consequently, classic disposition methods are not used. The use of fresh produce exacerbates this problem, as foodstuffs cannot be stored for such long periods due to their limited shelf life. In addition, there is often a lack of storage facilities with only a few deliveries per week due to the high logistics costs.

So someone should buy in who can combine the mixture of little system support and many special features well, who also knows the event calendar and is preferably available all the time. The colleague does not exist. In addition, the "purchaser" usually works in a specialist department, e.g. kitchen or nursing, and does the purchasing in addition to his normal work, not infrequently even after hours.

However, you can try to calculate a forecast, which is displayed as an order proposal, exclusively on the basis of the historical values, taking into account several preceding periods and the changes that have occurred in between, without building up MRP quantities. Additional manual rules for order proposals can optimize the proposals, e.g. taking over the history of a discontinued article.

The "Orderbob" is supposed to close exactly this gap between exact disposition and the perfectly informed "buyer". In the case of regularly procured products with constant demand, the Orderbob's order proposal naturally works very accurately in terms of quantity and timing. For items with high fluctuations, irregular consumption, special items for events or seasonal requirements, the suggestions for quantity and delivery date certainly become fuzzier and the buyer is more challenged to weigh the actual demand. The Orderbob reminds me, always provides quick access to the history of the item and thus supports the ordering decision.