Case Study: Forum Energy Technologies achieves streamlined demand planning and higher inventory turns with Smart Software

Forum Energy Streamlines Demand Planning, Improves Market Responsiveness with SmartForecasts

Forum Energy Technologies, a $1.7 billion global oilfield products company, faced a complex demand-planning challenge in its Valve Solutions Division: a highly cyclical business with mostly intermittent, sporadic demand and long lead times, while relying on a cumbersome Excel-based forecasting process that left stock levels to guesswork. To address this, Forum deployed SmartForecasts from Smart Software (integrated with its Epicor ERP) to move from quarterly, intuition-driven planning to a more frequent, data-driven approach.

Using Smart Software’s SmartForecasts to automate intermittent-demand forecasting, Forum shifted to monthly planning, enabled meaningful S&OP, and ran what-if inventory scenarios. The change improved forecast confidence and collaboration, supported 15–20% annual revenue growth over four years without increasing inventory, raised inventory turns from 1.8× to ~3.0×, and—through a VMI program for fasteners—cut in-house stock from 700,000 to 100,000 units with projected 12× turns.

Forum Energy Technologies

Rod Cardenas

Purchasing Manager