Use Cases
From stockout surprise to six-week visibility
Three planning problems Routeharvest solves for mid-market manufacturers and distributors, with real outcomes from the early-access program.
Stockout Prevention
A planner picks an order on a Friday and the shelf is bare. The ERP showed 200 units on hand, but that was the aggregate across four DCs. The Cincinnati DC had 12 units and a 22-unit daily pick rate. Nobody caught it because the per-location demand was never modeled separately.
The stockout creates an expedite charge, a partial shipment to the customer, and a Monday morning call to explain what happened. The root cause: a forecast that averaged away the location-level risk.
Six weeks of lead time
The per-SKU-location model at Cincinnati DC projects zero inventory on June 19 based on the pick rate trend. The planner gets an alert on June 3: "Reorder by today to maintain a 7-day buffer at Cincinnati DC."
The reorder is placed without an expedite charge. The shelf is stocked before Friday. The customer never knows there was a risk.
Dead Inventory
The overstock that hides in the corner of the DC
Last season's promotional SKU never sold out at the Kansas City DC. It was ordered based on a category-level forecast that included the Chicago DC's strong performance, a DC that had two major retail accounts that the KC DC did not.
Six months later, 340 units are still on a pallet, tying up 18 pallet positions and carrying $42,000 of inventory value with no clear demand path. The per-category forecast never modeled the DC-level demand difference.
Routeharvest models the Kansas City DC's demand independently. The overstock pattern surfaces in the weekly plan after week three of slower-than-expected velocity: "SKU-107 at KC DC is tracking 60% below model. Recommend reviewing open PO qty before next run."
Seasonal Planning
The six-week pre-season run-up
For food-service distributors and industrial suppliers, seasonal demand shifts are the hardest planning window. Volume can double in three weeks. A model trained on annual averages misses the ramp.
Routeharvest trains each SKU-location model to recognize the seasonal ramp from prior-year transaction patterns. When the ramp starts, the model detects the acceleration early and extends the reorder horizon to match the longer supplier lead times typical of pre-season buys.
- Prior-year seasonality baked into each SKU-location model
- Ramp detection extends the reorder horizon automatically
- Confidence bands widen as uncertainty increases at season peak
Pilot Results
Numbers from the early-access program
Which problem shows up on your Monday morning report?
Connect your ERP and see your first stockout forecast within 48 hours. Early-access program is open now.
Get Early Access