Aeion SCM for Wholesale Distribution
A distributor lives and dies on one question — how much do we have, where is it, and what should we reorder before it runs out. Aeion SCM answers it from a single system: a 12-period weighted moving average predicts demand per SKU, Z-score safety stock turns that into a defensible reorder number, real-time stock levels track on-hand / reserved / available down to the bin across every warehouse, and voice-directed wave picking gets the order out the door. Warehouse, procurement, vendor scoring, and forecasting all read the same live inventory — no end-of-day reconciliation between disconnected tools.
The Distributor's Operating Loop
Wholesale distribution is a buy-hold-sell cycle where margin hides in inventory accuracy. Five activities run the loop, and Aeion SCM ships all five in one module:
Never Promise Stock You Don't Have
The fastest way to lose a wholesale account is to confirm an order and then short-ship it. Aeion SCM keeps available-to-promise honest by tracking three quantities separately per product per warehouse:
Forecasting and Safety Stock, Without the Spreadsheet
Distributors carry thousands of SKUs with wildly different velocity. A single round-number "just in case" buffer over-stocks the slow movers and under-stocks the fast ones. Aeion SCM replaces the guess with math:
Vendor Scorecards That Grade Themselves
Most distributors have a "preferred vendor" list that is really a list of who someone liked in 2019. Aeion SCM keeps it current automatically. Every time a PO is received, the vendor is scored — and those scores feed the next reorder's vendor recommendation:
Get the Order Out the Door
Once inventory and reorder are handled, throughput is a picking problem. Aeion SCM batches open orders into optimized waves instead of walking a picker down the same aisle five times for five orders:
FAQ
Yes. It can act as a read-only mirror of an ERP like NetSuite, SAP, or Microsoft Dynamics for the forecasting and picking workflows while writes stay in the legacy system — or take full ownership with bidirectional sync. Aeion Singularity handles the data migration when you're ready to flip ownership.
Forecasts use a 12-period weighted moving average and each SKU's forecast accuracy is tracked continuously via MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error). A MAPE under 10% is considered excellent and under 20% acceptable, so you get an ongoing, per-SKU read on how much to trust the number rather than a single blanket claim.
On-hand, reserved, and available are tracked per product per warehouse in real time, down to the bin. Inter-warehouse transfers create a linked outbound/inbound movement pair so stock is never double-counted, and cycle counts are tracked as first-class inventory events.
Vendor scores (on-time %, quality, cost rank, lead-time variance) recompute on every PO receipt. Underperformers surface automatically, and the score feeds the vendor recommendation on the next reorder — so a slipping vendor loses preference without anyone maintaining a spreadsheet.
Voice confirmation is available when voice hardware is in use; the same wave and route optimization also works via scanner or on-screen pick lists. The confirmation codes are designed to be voice-friendly (no I/O/0/1) but scanning is a supported alternative.
It's highly variable by catalog size, warehouse layout, and how much manual reordering and reconciliation you're replacing. The main levers are fewer emergency reorders from better forecasting, less walking from route-optimized picking, and eliminated end-of-day reconciliation from a single shared inventory number — but we don't have aggregated customer ROI figures to quote. Talk to us and we'll model it against your operation.
One inventory number, from the dock to the sales floor.
AI demand forecasting, Z-score safety stock, real-time multi-warehouse stock, automatic vendor scoring, and voice-directed wave picking — in one system.