Inventory Planning in Contributor - Feed BiF

[amsole]

Hello,
I am having trouble using the Feed bif for a relatively simple inventory planning task because I cannot use the EOP to calculate what goes "IN" since it creates a circular reference.
Example:
BOP: 10
IN - Depends on EOP and the target. In this example, this would calculate to +5 since we want the EOP to match target of 10.
OUT: -5
EOP: xx
Target: 10

In Analyst I have used the "Stockflow" BiF, but this is not supported in Contributor.

Any ideas?
Thanks much

[aaday]

You could use an internal dlink, rather than the bif, to move EOP to be the BOP of the following period

[amsole]

aaday,
I tried the internal link and it works, but on Contributor it is EXTREMELY slow. (6-10 mins each time I change a number that affects BOP or EOP) I think this is because I have a 60 month planning horizon, and the dlink needs to run 60 times in order to give the correct result. But maybe the dlink is the best solution and it is slow because of a different reason?
Thanks
amsole

[aaday]

Internal dlinks can be slow but I wouldn't have expected that level of degredation

....  you could use feed param and calculate a percentage that you would apply by period to your opening stock values and derive the target that way rather than using an absolute value

So with feedparam if
Prime = 10
BOP = 10
IN would be -5 (as this I assume is your sales)
%age would be -50%  ie 5/10 is  Sales / base op Stock
So OUT would then be +5
Hence EOP is 10 which is the target

The %age would be calculated from Sales, your Prime Stock & the Target Stock ....all of which should work without being circular

[ykud]

Don't use internal links, it's exteremaly slow, try to adapt @FeedParam instead.