Compose a Forecast Action

How to compose a Forecast Action to compare & forecast changes to processes in your supply chain

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Written by Alex Inglis
Updated over a week ago

Introduction

Forecast Action data objects in Makersite work in conjunction with Forecast Scenarios, Forecast Actions are setup to apply changes to Processes that are part of your products supply chain.

Forecast Scenarios are used to calculate the carbon footprint performance of a particular Site in a supply chain, a Forecast Action is used to compare one Process with another e.g. if a Site is manufacturing pens, & one of the assembly processes is to glue the plastic body to the pen tip sub assembly, this gluing process could be replaced by a plastic welding process. The carbon footprint performance of the default gluing process can be compared to the alternative welding process, using an Action.

Multiple Forecast Actions can be added to a Forecast Scenario, allowing complex studies of the supply chain, to forecast how changes in processes impact the environmental performance of the Site, & the same Forecast Action can be used in multiple Forecast Scenarios so comparisons do not have to be repeated & many different configurations of scenarios can be created easily.

Overview

Navigate to the 'Compose' page from the Makersite Dashboard, & select the 'Forecast Action' data object.

Fill in the popup window, including 'Name', 'Description', 'Source process', '& 'Replacement process'.

Click 'Save' & the Forecast Action will be created & the 'Compose' page will open.

Step 1

Navigate to the 'Compose' page from the Makersite Dashboard, & select the 'Forecast Action' data object.

Step 2

The Forecast Action input popup will open.

Fill in all of the fields:

Name

This is the assigned name of the action, this can be any name of your choosing.

Description

This is where you can add a brief overview of what the Forecast Action is setup to do.

Source Process

Select the original Process that the Action will replace e.g. gluing the pen from the example above. Type the name of the Process in the field & select from the search results.

Replacement Process

Select the Process to replace the original Process for the forecasting e.g. plastic welding from the example above. Type the name of the Process in the field & select from the search results.

Once all of the fields are filled in, click on the blue 'Save' button in the bottom right corner.

The Forecast Action Compose page will now open, showing your newly created action.

Step 3

From the Forecast Action Compose page, all of the input fields can be edited, by clicking on the blue pencil icon to the right of the 'Information' section.

Step 4

There are three tabs at the top of the Compose page:

Description

This tab shows all off the general information the Forecast Scenario contains.

Forecast Scenarios

This is a list of any Forecast Scenarios that the Action has been added to.

Scenarios can be linked on this tab, by clicking on the blue '+' circle icon in the bottom right corner.

Fill out the Forecast Scenario popup:

Start Date

The date the Forecast Action will start on e.g. if the change is to be made at the beginning of the next financial year, enter this date.

End Date

The date the Forecast Action will end on e.g. if the change is to run for 5 years, enter a date 5 years after the 'Start Date'.

Forecast Scenario

Choose an existing Forecast Scenario. If one has not been created, please follow the steps in the Compose a Forecast Scenario FAQ.

Type the name of a Forecast Scenario into the field & select from the search results.

Normalization factor

This can be added if an adjustment needs to be made between the two selected processes in the action. The default is 1 i.e. like for like, or no adjustment.

e.g. This parameter would be changed if one process ha as different mass to the other, if Steel was replaced with Aluminium, the ratio of the differences in mass of these two materials would be entered here, for the above example the normalization factor would be set to 2.5, as generally Steel is 2.5 times the mass of Aluminium.

This figure will be specific to the processes being entered.

Replacement ratio

The is the proportion of the original 'Source Process' that will be replaced by the 'Replacement Process', e.g. If only half of the process is to be changed, this would be set to 0.5, this will tell the calculation to only replace 50% of the total process with the replacement. The default is 1, or 100% replacement.

Notes

Any notes can be added about the decisions made for the action, a useful entry would be to explain how/why a Normalization factor or Replacement ratio has been added.

Once a Forecast Scenario has been linked, it will show up in the list.

Discussion

Coming Soon.

Step 5

To view the results of a Forecast Scenario with any Forecast Actions, a Scenario Forecast Report can now be run.

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