Guides on demand forecasting, S&OP and inventory
What a planner needs to know to forecast better, close the S&OP cycle and hold the right inventory. Written by the people who implement it, with formulas and examples you can reproduce in Excel.
Demand Forecasting Methods: Quantitative, Qualitative and Machine Learning
A guide to demand forecasting methods: moving average, exponential smoothing, Holt-Winters, ARIMA, Croston, regression and machine learning; qualitative methods; how to choose the method per item with a model tournament.
Excel vs Demand Planning Software: When to Switch and When Not To
How far sales forecasting in Excel goes, the signs that the template has fallen short, what demand planning software offers, and a middle option: a forecasting engine inside Excel.
MAPE, MAD and Bias: How to Measure Forecast Error (Formulas and Example)
Forecast error metrics explained with formulas and a numerical example: MAD, MAPE, WAPE, bias, tracking signal and MASE. Which one to use in each case and the mistakes when computing them.
What Demand Forecasting Is and How to Do It Step by Step
What demand forecasting is, what it is for, the data you need, how to choose the level and the method, how to measure error, and a full example with a real distribution catalog.
Intermittent Demand: Why Your Forecast Fails and What to Use (Croston, SBA)
What intermittent demand is, how to recognize it with ADI and CV², why moving averages and exponential smoothing forecast it badly, and how Croston, SBA and TSB work.
Demand Planning KPIs: Which to Track and How to Build the Dashboard
The indicators a demand planning and S&OP team should track: MAPE, WAPE, bias, coverage, turns, fill rate, OTIF and plan adherence, with formulas, levels and how to organize them in a dashboard.
Safety Stock: Formula, Step-by-Step Example and Common Mistakes
How to calculate safety stock with the Z-score formula, demand deviation and lead time, with a numerical example, the link to the reorder point and the mistakes that inflate inventory.
S&OP Guide: What It Is, the 5-Step Process and How It Differs from IBP
What S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) is, how the monthly cycle works step by step, which KPIs to use, how it differs from IBP and S&OE, and the mistakes that make the process fail.