Development of an expert system for demand management process

ABSTRACT In a competitive environment, companies need to respond to customers faster. Knowing what customers exactly want may enable firms to plan more accurately. Hence, synchronising demand and supply is important for order processing to achieve responsiveness. This study focuses on demand integration practices and is carried out at the office furniture factory. Considering the integration of customer and supply chain strategy, a web-based expert system (ES) is developed in this study. Moreover, database of enterprise resource planning (ERP) of factory is integrated to the web-based ES in order to take account of availability of materials and capacities. The developed ES captures the customers’ requirements in a consistent manner and compares them against the specifications of product inventory on hand. If there is a need, it evaluates factory capabilities in order to decide to manufacture or not according to the requested due date and then, it can generate new alternative due date when there is no feasible schedule for the requested due date. Moreover, the proposed web-based ES can order new product on ERP of factory at the distant retailer to fulfil the customer’s needs comparing production planning schedules. As a result, improved order fulfilment is expected in terms of quantity, speed, lower inventory levels and increased flexibility.