RedPrairie creates exclusive joint venture to introduce E²e™ Flowcasting

MILWAUKEE, Wis.– RedPrairie Corporation, a productivity software provider, along with Factory 2 Shelf’s André Martin and Retail Pipeline’s Darryl Landvater, announced today an exclusive global joint venture which will add E²e™ Flowcasting to the RedPrairie solution suite. Unlike traditional forecasting, E²e Flowcasting leverages point-of-sale (POS) store data to create a model of the business. Flowcasting reports encompass product demand, transportation, financial projections, and capacity plans – which represent a common set of plans that all trading partners can agree upon.

Flowcasting has already been used with some of the largest retail and consumer goods manufacturers. Benefits of the patented E²e Flowcasting solution include:

Improved visibility for manufacturers – manufacturers receive an accurate picture of future customer demand allowing them to reduce safety stock levels and improve manufacturing productivity. Demonstrated results include the ability to project retailer orders one month into the future with an average error of two to three days.
Reduced out-of-stocks and increased sales – if POS sales on any given day are higher than expected, the chain reaction of demand automatically reacts. Current Flowcasting users have found a dramatic increase in forecast accuracy and significant reductions in out-of-stock merchandise.
Enhanced and improved collaborative business processes - trading partners are able to achieve a high level of collaboration enabling them to meet common goals and objectives, analyze future promotions, changes in display settings, and more – all of which can result in a 30 percent improvement in labor productivity.

“For years, RedPrairie has been focused on removing the communication barriers between manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers,” says Mike Mayoras, CEO of RedPrairie. “For retailing to reinvent itself, it needs a different approach to inventory management. The RedPrairie Collaborative Flowcasting Group and the E²e Flowcasting solution provide every party in the retail supply chain the ability to rethink their merchandising and inventory strategies based on customer demand, not projected forecasts.”

“We’re excited about this venture with RedPrairie because they not only work with many of the leading global retailers, but their perspective of the broader retail supply chain has long recognized the important role of demand signals and POS data to create smarter supply chains,” says André Martin, CEO of the RedPrairie Collaborative Flowcasting Group. “Retailers, operations executives, brand category managers, and retail suppliers can benefit from E²e Flowcasting.”

André Martin will present “The Collaborative Flowcasting Business Process” at RedPrairie’s upcoming user conference, RedShift:2009. Those interested can visit www.redprairie.com/redshift for more information.

About Factory 2 Shelf and Retail Pipeline
Factory 2 Shelf and Retail Pipeline were included in Gartner’s “Cool Vendors in SCM and ERP, 2008.” The April 15, 2008 report was written by C. Dwight Klappich and Andrew White. André Martin and Darryl Landvater have been cited for their pioneering work in applying the Distribution Resource Planning (DRP) principles and concepts to the store-level.

About RedPrairie Corporation

RedPrairie delivers productivity solutions to help companies around the world in three categories – inventory, transportation and workforce. RedPrairie provides these solutions to manufacturers, distributors and retailers looking to reduce cost, increase sales and create competitive advantage.

With over 20 global offices providing services to over 40,000 sites in 50 countries, companies trust RedPrairie inventory, workforce and transportation solutions to deliver an immediate increase in productivity – with the flexibility to adapt as business needs change.

At RedPrairie, we understand today’s operational demands and we’re committed to delivering solutions that work. We’re committed to delivering solutions for the real world.

For additional information, call 1.877.733.7724, or visit www.RedPrairie.com.