Orpheon integrations and connectors.
Orpheon integrations and connectors link the forecasting platform to your ERP, inventory management, and production planning systems, so forecast data flows in from systems you already run and results get written back into them. That means no second, separate system alongside your existing IT landscape - Orpheon adds to the systems already in use, rather than replacing them.
What it connects to
Orpheon reads data from the systems where it already originates, and writes forecast results back to where business departments already work. That holds regardless of whether a system is standard software, a customized solution, or built in-house, as long as structured access to the relevant data is possible.
| System category | Typical use in Orpheon |
|---|---|
| ERP systems | Order, purchase, and master data as the basis for sales and spare-parts forecasts |
| Inventory management | Stock levels and movement data for demand planning |
| Production planning systems | Shift plans and capacity for energy and material demand |
| Maintenance systems | Maintenance history as the basis for spare-parts demand |
An ERP data connection for forecasting software like Orpheon is not a replacement for existing systems, but an additional layer of analysis built on the same data. Which systems get connected in a given case depends on the forecasting task: sales forecasting often only needs a single ERP connection, while a spare-parts demand forecast typically also draws on maintenance and production planning data.
Access and security in the system connection
Orpheon integrations and connectors work through clearly scoped access rights, granted individually per source system. A source system is never fully opened up to Orpheon - only the specific data fields actually needed are released. When Orpheon runs behind your firewall, the traffic between Orpheon and the connected systems also stays inside your own infrastructure, with no data leaving for the sake of the connection itself, regardless of how many systems are connected in total.
How the connection works technically
Orpheon's connectors are set up on a project basis, depending on which systems a company runs. As a first step, NexPatch works with the customer to review which data fields from which system are relevant to the forecast in question. A data pipeline is then built that reads those fields regularly, cleans them, and prepares them for model operations, as described on the Orpheon Pipelines page. Forecast results then flow back through the same connection into the source system, or into a dashboard business departments already use.
What matters here is that forecast data comes from existing systems and results flow back into them, instead of forcing a parallel interface staff would have to maintain separately. This system connection is set up during the pilot within the first 72 hours, and refined over the following 4 to 10 weeks through to productive rollout.
Frequently asked questions
For manufacturing specifically
In manufacturing operations, connecting to production planning and maintenance systems matters especially, because spare-parts demand and energy demand hang closely on machine and shift data. These systems have often grown over years and are not consistently connected to each other, so in practice Orpheon also takes on a function that simply did not exist before: bringing production, maintenance, and ERP data together for a shared forecast for the first time. What these use cases look like in practice is on the Orpheon Forecasting page. A full picture of the forecasting platform is on the Orpheon overview; how data is prepared beforehand through pipelines is described on the Orpheon Pipelines page.