Information regarding the enhancements made to DealerVu’s Suggested Order Management System and the importance for Canadian Harley-Davidson dealers to use the DealerVu SOM system

 

Harley-Davidson Canada LP

Using DealerVu Suggested Order Management (SOM) System

Prepared by: Brian Schumacher
Date: February 2, 2018
 

General

In 2015, Harley-Davidson Canada LP (HDC) commissioned DealerVu to provide Canadian Harley‑Davidson® (H-D) dealers with a replacement for the CIM suggested ordering system that was previously provided by Manugistics, a US business partner of Harley-Davidson Motor Company. The objective of this strategic change was to move the process of determining suggested orders for Parts & Accessories and General Merchandise (PAM) to the DealerVu system so that each dealer’s reorder points and stocking levels would be based on that dealer’s own sales activity within their DAT. Furthermore, incorporating the process of suggested order management within DealerVu would make the PAM replenishment process real-time, making it more responsive to daily sales and order activity at the dealer level and eliminating the lag time experienced with the third-party PAM replenishment system from Manugistics.
 
At the end of 2017, the basic replenishment process logic of the DealerVu SOM system was further enhanced by a Phase 2 project commissioned by Harley-Davidson Canada LP. The objective of HDC for Phase 2 was to further enhance the DealerVu SOM features and functionality and to provide Canadian H-D® dealers with the benefits of PAM data gathered from all Canadian H-D® dealers and stored at HDC. Consequently, dealers that use the DealerVu SOM system fully now enjoy the benefits that come from data within the entire H-D® community (H-D® dealers and HDC) in Canada. Some of the highlighted features in Phase 2 are as follows:
 

• HDC now provides dealers with a download of data of the national top selling item numbers within each HDC product category. With that information, dealers can determine if they are not ordering and stocking top selling items.

• HDC now provides a daily update of the Obsolete and Pending Obsolete information from the changes made to the HDC master PAM file. These flags now eliminate the possibility of ordering obsolete items and highlight items that are in “Use Up” status at HDC (Pending Obsolete), so that availability can be checked before an order is submitted.

• HDC will now download a “trigger” to all dealers before each ADM and RRE show that will run a full PAM price file update, ensuring that all new H-D® item numbers have been added to dealer inventories before major HDMC shows.

• Every night, each dealer’s DealerVu system now uploads a data file to HDC that contains an extract of all current dealer reorder points and suggested order points designed to allow HDC to assist dealers with optimizing PAM performance.

• HDC can now download a file of HDC suggested stocking parameters to dealers. These HDC suggested order parameters are designed to guide and assist dealers with optimizing PAM performance.

• DealerVu SOM now provides an alert list of Stock status part numbers sorted by the number of sales with fewer than five hits in the last year, so that dealers can make Phase Out decisions, and an alert list of Non-stock status part numbers sorted by sales with greater than or equal to five hits, so that dealers can make Phase In decisions.

• The DealerVu SOM screen is enhanced for seasonality, to accommodate in season and off season reorder points.

• There is a new enhancement to determine suggested reorder points based on the combined sales of part number per style number.

• A dealer can now extract all current order points and suggested order points for export to an Excel file for analysis.

• Associated store Customers are to be identified with special flag, so that inter-store transfers are flagged as Exceptional Sales (not retail sales for reorder points).

• An option is added to select an existing PO rather than creating a new PO.

• Superseded parts are shown with a “+” sign to list reference parts.

• A way is provided to override alerts and yet track overridden items.

• There is now the ability to modify the Exceptional Sale box on closed invoices.

Why Use the DealerVu SOM System?

An honest assessment of the benefits of any modern day dealer management system (DMS) should award high marks to a system that has automated stock replenishment logic and process built in. A DMS that has the ability to continually refine reorder points by using historical sales for an item as the basis for determining projected sales demands is vastly more valuable than relying on the gut feel of the human capital in your P&A and General Merchandise departments. Furthermore, any DMS that has the replenishment process linked to a major supplier’s data as far as national, regional, and provincial top sellers in each category should get dealer principals excited as to the potential for reaching high profit levels from Parts & Accessories and General Merchandise sales. The DealerVu system is that type of DMS. These advanced DealerVu features, when properly deployed and monitored on a daily basis, accrue benefits to your dealership like:
 

• Minimizing the dollar average amount invested in P&A and Core General Merchandise inventory while maximizing the turns of that inventory and the related gross profit margin $ to the bottom line;
• Providing the right P&A and Core General Merchandise items at the right times within the sales cycles of the year;
• Reducing and eliminating the number of out-of-stock situations for critical care items and lost sales on Core P&A and General Merchandise items;
• Improving overall dealership cash available and cash flow by carrying less inventory while turning the inventory into sales at a more rapid rate; and
• Capitalizing on the national, regional, and provincial top selling item information shared with dealers by HDC to identify items not being stocked in your market that may add to your sales and profits.

 
If you are involved in a Canadian Harley-Davidson® dealership that is not using the DealerVu SOM system, you are vastly underutilizing the DealerVu DMS and inadvertently setting the bar very low for your expectation of sales and profits from your P&A and General Merchandise departments.
 
 
 

Getting Onboard with the DealerVu SOM System

Starting to use the DealerVu SOM System is very easy and there is a vast resource of DealerVu instructional help guides on the SOM system on DealerVu’s community.dealervu.com website, found under Help>Technical Support from the DealerVu top menu. If you enter “SOM” in the Search field and click the Search button, you will see all the DealerVu help guides related to the Suggested Order Management System. Click on any of the help guides to see the instructional guide.

What DealerVu Guide Should Be Reviewed First to Get Started?

The best guide to use to get started is the one named 1.27 - Part - Suggested Ordering Management (SOM). That guide is the basic starting point that allows a dealer to start from where they left off with the former CIM system. However, if your dealership did not use CIM, you will be faced with a bit of a slow start, because you will need to start identifying each item for which you want to ensure you have an adequate quantity on hand and then manually checking the part detail record for each item to make sure that the Non Stock checkbox is un-checked. If the Non Stock check box is un-checked, the item is deemed to be a “Stock” item that will be included in the nightly calculation of Suggested Reorder Points. These Suggested Reorder Points (SOP) can then be reviewed the next morning by simply looking at the SOM screen noted in the help guide and then manually entering a minimum inventory quantity in the ROP (Reorder Point) field that matches the SOP value. A thorough walk-through of all the critical care and service repair Parts, fast moving or popular Accessories, and Core General Merchandise to set the ROPs will give you an incredibly productive automated process. By following the steps in the guide 1.27 - Part - Suggested Ordering Management (SOM) you will be able to create a suggested order for all the “Stock” items with reference to your ROP values whenever the predicted near-term demand exceeds the available current inventory on hand and available quantity on order.
 
Keep in mind that as a result of the significance of the seasonality factor that affects Canadian Harley‑Davidson® dealers, you should add seasonal parameters to any items that fall into that category. In order to set up seasonal parameters, you need to review the DealerVu user help guide named 18.0 - SOM - Ability to add In-Season and Off-Season ROP.
 
 

How to Learn to Use SOM

Once you have performed the initialization of the SOM system by setting up stock items with ROPs, you are well on your way, as the DealerVu SOM user interface is exceptionally intuitive. However, there are a number of new feature enhancements that were recently released to all Canadian H-D® dealers that you need to become familiar with so that you can reap their benefits. All of these features are listed below and a DealerVu instructional help guide for each is available on the DealerVu community.DealerVu.com site (remember to enter SOM in the Search field to get a quick list of all the SOM help guides).
 
The list below shows the titles of all of these instructional guides, giving you a topical guide for learning the DealerVu SOM system. Please review each of these guides and go into your SOM screen to apply what you have learned. You will be an expert in the DealerVu SOM system in no time and the increases in your dealership’s sales and profits will be the proof.
 

DealerVu Version 18.0 SOM Enhancement Listing

• SOM - Ability to add In-Season and Off-Season ROP
• SOM - Ability to add Store to Store Transfer of Parts to the Exceptional Sale
• SOM - Ability to Modify the Exceptional Sale box on Closed Invoices
• SOM - Flag Open PO's as Exceptional Order
• SOM - Harley-Davidson only - Top Selling Part Utility
• SOM - Harley-Davidson only - Vendor Suggested ROP
• SOM - HDC Triggered Full HD Part Inventory Update
• SOM - Ignore ROP Mismatch
• SOM - Obsolete - Pending Obsolete Part Update
• SOM - Option to add Suggested Order to an Existing PO
• SOM - Part Inventory Reorder Points Report
• SOM - Phase In Phase Out Parts
• SOM - Show Superseded Parts 

 
If you have any questions about the DealerVu Suggested Order Management (SOM) system, please do not hesitate to contact DealerVu Support (click on DealerVu top menu Help>Technical Support for all the access information for DealerVu Support).