Creativity, Inc. (Van Nuys, Calif.) recently purchased SmartForecasts Enterprise from Smart Software, Inc. (Belmont, Mass.), to improve demand planning and inventory management. The privately held distributor of arts and crafts supplies will integrate SmartForecasts with the company’s CMS ERP system to better quantify and predict demand patterns, and provide superior service to its customers. Creativity is a mid-sized importer and supplier of a variety of arts and crafts products, such as beads, scrapbooking supplies, paper crafting, and craft organization solutions. The company consists of four divisions: Blue Moon Beads, DMD, Crop-In-Style and Westrim Crafts, and manages more than 12,000 active SKUs in its inventory. Creativity will use SmartForecasts’ forecasting and inventory optimization capabilities to provide accurate safety stock estimates and set service level inventory requirements. This will help to ensure more efficient distribution procedures and better merchandising support for its customers. “With our growing business we need more horsepower to get the job done,” says Nick Lazarou, vice president of supply chain management at Creativity. “SmartForecasts will enable us to add accurate statistically-based forecasting to our collaborative demand forecasting process. This capability will help us do a better job of managing our inventories and providing superior customer service.”