Smart Software Awarded Second National Science Foundation Innovation Research Grant

New research to improve demand forecasting and planning of service/spare parts

BELMONT, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Smart Software, Inc., provider of industry-leading demand forecasting, planning, and inventory optimization solutions, today announced that it has been awarded a second Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Nationally, only 20% of the NSF grant applicants were funded. Smart will use the research funds to extend and improve its current intermittent demand forecasting solution by developing an advanced proprietary method. Upon successful completion of its SBIR research, Smart Software will be the only commercial vendor to offer a next generation forecasting solution for intermittently demanded items, such as service and spare parts. The commercial impact of this project will be to improve demand planning and inventory management for companies with large, often expensive, inventories of service/spare parts.

“With the recent award of our second National Science Foundation SBIR research grant, we will continue to forge ahead with research that promises to solve another challenging forecasting and planning problem”

This new research extends work undertaken more than ten years ago under Smart Software’s first SBIR Phase I and Phase II grants, which led to the development of technology known as the Smart-Willemain method of forecasting intermittent or “slow-moving” demand. In 2001, Smart received a US patent for this new method. This technology is currently available in Smart’s supply chain planning and forecasting system, SmartForecasts^®, and is being used by scores of companies to accurately forecast intermittent demand, optimize inventory and safety stock requirements, increase customer service levels, and reduce costs.

“With the recent award of our second National Science Foundation SBIR research grant, we will continue to forge ahead with research that promises to solve another challenging forecasting and planning problem,” said Charles Smart, president and CEO of Smart Software. “We are proud of the fact that we passed a rigorous NSF screen that assessed both the scientific merit of our new ideas and their commercial potential. In this project, we look forward to once again advancing the state of the art in forecasting the demand for service and spare parts, which is typically intermittent and quite difficult to forecast.”

The innovation in Smart’s proposed research is that companies can achieve even greater accuracy and power in forecasting intermittently demanded items, such as service and spare parts, by approaching the problem in an unconventional way. The research has already established the statistical validity of a new way of conceptualizing and analyzing a firm’s "portfolio" of service/spare parts, one that moves beyond the conventional one-item-at-a-time approach and deals with multiple items simultaneously. The need for this new solution is based on Smart’s experience working with customers in major industries —aerospace, automotive, utilities, high tech— where large numbers of service and spare parts must be inventoried.

SmartForecasts is a cross-industry solution for demand forecasting, demand planning, and inventory optimization that utilizes pioneering innovations, such as Smart Software’s patented technology for forecasting intermittent, or slow-moving, demand. SmartForecasts also leverages customers’ existing IT investments and reduces total cost of ownership by integrating easily with host databases, as well as ERP and SCM systems like Sage, SAP, Oracle, JD Edwards and Epicor.

About Smart Software, Inc.

Founded in 1984, Smart Software, Inc. is a leader in providing businesses with enterprise-wide demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization solutions. Smart Software’s flagship product, SmartForecasts, has thousands of users worldwide, including customers at mid-market enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, such as Abbott Laboratories, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Disney, Godiva, Nikon, GE and The Coca-Cola Company. SmartForecasts gives demand planners the tools to handle sales seasonality, promotions, new and aging products, multi-dimensional hierarchies, and intermittently demanded service parts and capital goods items. It also provides inventory managers with accurate estimates of the minimum inventory and safety stock required to meet future orders and achieve desired service levels. Smart Software is headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts and can be found on the Internet at www.smartcorp.com.

For more information, please contact Gregory Hartunian at 1-800-762-7899 or [e-mail].

SmartForecasts is a registered trademark of Smart Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.