ATP, Inc., a privately held firm with headquarters in Morton Grove, Illinois, carries an inventory of approximately 6,000 product items. The company manufactures transmission parts, repair kits, and other automotive aftermarket products including a complete line of cables for accelerator, clutch and transhift applications, as well as manifolds, oil pans, lubricants, and other items.

Like many companies in the automotive aftermarket industry, ATP has a large number of inventory items that are hard-to-forecast because they have intermittent, or "slow-moving", demand patterns. ATP is looking for ways to lower its inventory and reduce costs without affecting its historical ability to consistently achieve a 98% fill rate. SmartForecasts helps companies like ATP produce accurate forecasts and reliable, cost-effective safety stock estimates even for items with intermittent demand.

"Our goal is to reduce inventory without reducing service," said Maureen Rogak, vice president of supply chain at ATP, Inc. "To do that, we needed a better way to accurately forecast the demand for our products especially those with intermittent demand, and SmartForecasts gives us that ability. It's also helped us streamline our monthly forecasting process by reducing the time involved from one week to two days, and with the more accurate forecasts SmartForecasts provides, we've begun to see our inventory levels and order quantities start to go down."

About Smart Software
Founded in 1984, Smart Software, Inc. is a leader in providing businesses with enterprise-wide demand forecasting, planning and inventory optimization solutions. Smart Software's flagship product, SmartForecasts, has thousands of customers worldwide, including midmarket enterprises and Fortune 500 companies, such as Monsanto, Mitsubishi, Siemens, Labatt Breweries, Pfizer, and Coca-Cola. SmartForecasts gives demand planners the tools to handle sales seasonality, promotions, new and aging products, multi-dimensional hierarchies, and intermittently demanded service parts and capital goods items. It also provides inventory managers with accurate estimates of the minimum inventory and safety stock required to meet future orders, thereby ensuring the most cost-effective inventory allocation to achieve desired service levels. Smart Software is headquartered in Belmont, Massachusetts and can be found on the World Wide Web at www.smartcorp.com.

SmartForecasts is a trademark of Smart Software, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.