Blue Yonder plus Ward: assortment for a VP Supply Chain
You find out about stockouts after customers do. Ward picks up assortment movement in your Blue Yonder data and attributes what caused it.
How a VP Supply Chain runs assortment off Blue Yonder
What assortment planning does: Ward analyzes sell-through by store cluster to recommend which SKUs to add, drop, or reallocate.
You find out about stockouts after customers do. Ward filters to what a VP Supply Chain can act on and drops the rest.
How it runs. Ward clusters stores by demographic, traffic, and sales patterns, then measures SKU performance against cluster benchmarks.
Getting the data in. Ward reads Blue Yonder outputs via API or flat file export. Compares forecasts against actuals to measure accuracy.
What you get
- SKU rationalization recommendations
- Whitespace opportunity detection
- Planogram optimization inputs
- Store cluster segmentation
Chat
Ask anything. Ward routes to the right agent and returns cited answers.
I pulled Store 37’s last 28 days against the chain baseline. Two root causes, both compounding.
| Signal | Finding |
|---|---|
labor_efficiency | Rev/labor-hour −22% vs. cluster, staffing mismatch at 11a–1p peak |
inventory.fresh | Fresh fill 83%, backroom replenishment lag at 2–4p |
promo.lift | BOGO crackers cannibalized Brand Y by 28%, net category +6% |
Recommend: re-baseline Store 37 schedule against true peak, raise replen window to 1p, and review the BOGO before next cycle.
labor_scheduling…
Reporting
Pinned views built from saved data-lake queries. Every number re-derivable from its SQL.
| Model | Horizon | MAPE |
|---|---|---|
holt_winters | 4wk | 4.1% |
arima_sarimax | 13wk | 8.9% |
gbm_demand | 1wk | 2.1% |
bayes_hier | new store | 11.4% |
Sources
Connect external systems to the data lake.
| Name | Type | Last sync |
|---|---|---|
sap_pos_transactions | import | 2m ago |
sap_inventory_shrinkage | import | 2m ago |
sap_labor_scheduling | import | 14m ago |
retail_inventory_weekly | import | 1h ago |
retail_google_ads_daily | import | 1h ago |
retail_meta_ads_daily | import | 1h ago |
retail_ga4_website_daily | import | 1h ago |
Policies
Browse and manage Cedar access policies for your tenant.
| Policy ID | Effect | Resources |
|---|---|---|
merch-read-default | permit | Model::* |
finance-read-shrinkage | permit | Model::"inventory_shrinkage" |
vendor-blocked | forbid | Model::"labor_*" |
region-west-only | permit | Tenant::"acme" |
Why this combination
is its own problem.
Blue Yonder was built for transactions, not for supply chain decisions. The data is right there and it is in the wrong shape. Ward reads straight from demand forecasts and replenishment recommendations and rewrites them as a decision.
What Ward has eyes on.
Stock what sells. Cut what doesn't. Ward runs the model continuously rather than on a reporting cycle, which is why a finding lands the morning the pattern starts instead of at the end of the period.
The connection to Blue Yonder is read-only and runs on your schedule. Ward reads straight from demand forecasts, replenishment recommendations, and the rest of the feed, then combines it with external context your Supply Chain does not carry: weather, local events, competitor pricing.
What the first 90 days
actually look like.
-
01
Week 1: connect
Read-only credentials to Blue Yonder. Ward reads demand forecasts, replenishment recommendations, allocation plans and starts building baselines. First findings land inside 48 hours, before baselines are stable, so you can see the shape of the output early.
-
02
Weeks 2 to 3: calibration
Baselines stabilize per store and per category. Ward stops flagging normal variance and starts flagging exceptions. This is the window where the false positive rate drops sharply.
-
03
Weeks 4 to 12: operating rhythm
Cards arrive on a daily cycle and get triaged like any other queue. Most teams find the volume settles into something one person clears in ten minutes. What matters is the action rate, not the alert count.
How Ward connects to Blue Yonder
Ward layers on top of Blue Yonder demand planning and replenishment. Ward watches what Blue Yonder recommends and flags when actual diverges from plan.
Setup: Ward reads Blue Yonder outputs via API or flat file export. Compares forecasts against actuals to measure accuracy.
Data Ward reads from Blue Yonder
Impact metrics with Blue Yonder
Data lake enrichment
Ward enriches Blue Yonder data with: Demand forecasts, POS actuals, Weather & events, Supplier fill rates, Competitor data
You find out about stockouts after customers do.
- ×Demand forecasts are off by 15-25% and nobody catches it until the shelf is empty
- ×Supplier fill rate problems announce themselves at the receiving dock
- ×Safety stock levels get set once a year and left alone
- ×No early warning system for supply chain disruptions
- ×Replenishment exceptions require manual triage every morning
- ✓Stockout prediction cards arrive 24-72 hours before empty shelves
- ✓Supplier fill rate tracking with automatic escalation
- ✓Dynamic safety stock recommendations based on current demand signals
- ✓Weather, event, and macro-driven demand adjustments
- ✓Replenishment exceptions auto-prioritized by revenue impact
Stockouts cost retailers $1.14 trillion in missed sales globally each year. Source: IHL Group
Frequently asked questions
Ward reads Blue Yonder outputs via API or flat file export. Compares forecasts against actuals to measure accuracy. Data points include: Demand forecasts, Replenishment recommendations, Allocation plans, Exception alerts.
You find out about stockouts after customers do. Ward solves this with automated insight cards: Stockout prediction cards arrive 24-72 hours before empty shelves. Supplier fill rate tracking with automatic escalation. Dynamic safety stock recommendations based on current demand signals.
First insight cards arrive within 48 hours of data connection. Ward needs approximately 2 weeks to establish stable baselines for your specific operation.
No. Ward sits on top of your existing stack. It is the proactive intelligence layer that watches your data continuously and delivers insight cards, so your team acts on findings instead of hunting for them.
Related solutions
See what assortment problems Ward catches.
Root causes, not just alerts. See it on your data.
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Find out what your data has been hiding.
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