"Teamwork flickr photo by quinn.anya shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) licenseMany industry initiatives have attempted to create efficiency and effectiveness through theintegration of supply chain activities and processes which have been identified by such namesas QR, VMI, and ECR, as briefly mentioned earlier. One of the most recent initiatives aimedat achieving true supply chain integration (see Module 5) is collaborative planning,forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR). CPFR has become recognised as a breakthroughbusiness model for planning, forecasting, and replenishment. Using this approach, retailers,distributors, and manufacturers can utilise available Internet-based technologies tocollaborate on operational planning through execution. Transportation providers have nowbeen included with the concept of collaborative transportation management (CTM). Simplyput, CPFR allows trading partners to agree to a single forecast for an item where each partnertranslates this forecast into a single execution plan. This replaces the traditional method offorecasting where each trading partner developed its own forecast for an item and eachforecast was different for each partner. The CPFR process begins with the sharing ofmarketing plans between trading partners. Once an agreement is reached on the timing andplanned sales of specific products, and a commitment is made to follow that plan closely, theplan is then used to create a forecast, by stock-keeping unit (SKU), by week, and by quantity. Theoretically, an accurate CPFR forecast could be translated directly into aproduction and replenishment schedule by the manufacturer since both quantity and timingare included in the CPFR forecast. This would allow the manufacturer to make the productsto order (based on the quantity and timing of demand) rather than making them to inventory,thus reducing total inventories for the manufacturer. "