Sales Forecasting

The part-book is a sales forecasting software solution for automotive suppliers

The Part-Book is a Sales Forecasting software solution that was designed and built for Automotive Suppliers.  It helps Automotive Suppliers see beyond the 40 week sales forecast provided by EDI and their ERP/MRP system, in a fraction of the time it takes with spreadsheets. 

The Part-Book is a Program, Part and Project Management system, which means that it captures the program to part relationship, including part takes rates, quantity per vehicle and volumes.  As a Project Management system, the Part-Book also governs and administers quotes for new business and engineering changes to existing parts.  The Part-Book is the system of record for all part related information, so it knows the cost and price of every part, at every level, including each option or scenario.  The Part-Book has all of the information needed to generate a fully automated Sales Forecast; and it does just that.

The Part-Book Sales Forecast report can be run with varying options, including by Customer / Program / Customer Location / Company Location / Product Type; for 1, 5 or 10 years, based on quoted, planned or actual volumes.  Once the report has been been ran it can be dumped to Excel with the click of a button, then sliced, diced and shared as needed.  Using the Part-Book for Sales Forecasting is similar to what automotive supplier do today, except with accurate, up-to-date information that is maintained by a database; and without the mind numbing task of moving lots of data from one spreadsheet to another, or depending on people to consistently transfer knowledge and updates when things change.

 There are many problems with spreadsheets.  Repeated studies have found that between 80 – 90% of spreadsheets have errors, even after careful review.  Spreadsheets can only be used by one person at a time.  If you’ve ever tried to fully understand the logic, formulas and values on a complex spreadsheet that was created by someone else then you know how difficult that can be.  When we don’t fully understand the information in a spreadsheet we don’t trust it, so we don’t use it – what we do instead is create more spreadsheets, then store them with loosely controlled file names and folders; and the cycle repeats.  If you’re not convinced that spreadsheets don’t work, you can read a story from CIO about 8 of the worst spreadsheet blunders here.

Sales Forecasting has always been challenging for Automotive Suppliers; and that’s partly because they have customers who seem to consistently overestimate vehicle volumes by 15 – 20%.  In an effort to put together an accurate sales forecast, many suppliers subscribe to IHS.  IHS typically provides a more accurate estimate on the number of vehicles that will be sold than the OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), but they’re not always right on target; and it’s only a partial solution for some suppliers because IHS doesn’t break down the volume for each vehicle derivative, such as color or powertrain.  So, whether you’re using IHS or a hybrid solution to come up with a Sales Forecast, the Part-Book was designed to allow Automotive Suppliers to work with whatever data they have to assemble the most accurate Sales Forecast possible.        

In addition, with the gold version of the Part-Book software application you get Part-Book Insights™, where we leverage Microsoft Power BI (Business Intelligence) to create beautiful dashboards that provide clear visibility of other key sales metrics and actionable items, including customized reports. 

The Part-Book can also be more than just a Sales Forecasting software solution.  The Part-Book can help automotive suppliers measure performance while providing additional insights that improve their sales process and outcomes during negotiations; while deepening customer trust and loyalty in a way that helps grow sales profitably!