by Jon Schreibfeder | May 2, 2002 | Forecasting
A customer requests a product and it’s not in stock. They can’t wait for you to obtain the item so they purchase it elsewhere. You’ve lost a sale. That means you have lost the opportunity to earn a profit, disappointed the customer, and probably put...
by Jon Schreibfeder | Nov 1, 2001 | Forecasting
I received a call from one of my customers this afternoon. “Jon, something is wrong with my demand forecast. We usually have a sharp drop in usage in January because several customers have shutdowns. But the forecast is recommending we stock almost twice as much...
by Jon Schreibfeder | Jan 2, 2001 | Forecasting
Most computer systems provide a lot of information. Management and employees depend on the analysis provided by the computer software to make critical business decisions. But do you know how the numbers appearing on your reports and screens were generated? Before you...
by Jon Schreibfeder | Aug 5, 1999 | Forecasting
Some items, like beach umbrellas, are more popular in summer than in winter. On the other hand, portable heaters enjoy much higher sales when the weather gets cold. These are seasonal items. But the weather is not the only factor that determines whether or not an item...
by Jon Schreibfeder | Aug 1, 1999 | Forecasting
In 1987, Gordon Graham wrote a book, Distribution Inventory Management for the 1990s. In this book, Graham described what he considered to be the best method for forecasting the future demand for both seasonal and non-seasonal products. Let’s take a quick look...
by Jon Schreibfeder | Feb 3, 1999 | Forecasting
A demand forecast (also referred to as a usage rate) is a prediction of the amount of each product that will be sold, transferred, used in an assembly, or otherwise consumed in the future. It’s easy to see that inaccurate forecasts can cause major problems for...
