Tweet At the IBF, we realize that executives are faced with unprecedented pressures to react quickly and maintain a healthy company track record, despite rising costs, shrinking margins, and lack of loyalty from customers. With a proliferation of new products in the marketplace, shorter product life-cycles, the difficulties in succeeding has become even greater. For…
Tweet As a Demand Planning Manager, a key responsibility is ensuring Sales has product to sell. Keeping inventory low to control capital and reduce out of date potential, limiting floor space to store inventory, and having good production practices to keep lines running efficiently and seasonality– all these present a fine line between success and…
Tweet Driven by a recent discussion at my company, I recently raised a question on the IBF’s Linkedin discussion group; can a demand planner do its job in half the time? The initial reaction, was, ‘of course not.’ But, as timed passed, the responses started changing. The most common answer was “it all depends.” The…
Tweet YES…It is Really Possible to Create a One Number Forecast. Are you tired of everyone second guessing your forecast? No one believes the number…..and why should they? There are multiple variations of your forecast floating around the company. Finance has one, sales has one, marketing too! It is ok for people to have different…
Tweet IBF’s LinkedIn discussion group presently features a lively conversation going on about SKU rationalization, a favorite topic of mine. Anthony Davidson initiated the conversation by posting the question,“…what key factors should be considered in determining which SKUs should be eliminated from the mix?” It is generally agreed upon that unchecked product proliferation will result…
Tweet Today’s rapidly changing market demands elasticity and flexibility from people, processes and technology. In the current economy, change is the only thing that is consistent and we must change in order to adapt to this constant. However, knowing this doesn’t make it any easier. The Summer 2012 issue of the IBF’s Journal of Business Forecasting provides…
Tweet Short answer: No. For the past month there has been a healthy discussion about forecast accuracy metrics on the Institute of Business Forecasting & Planning discussion group on LinkedIn. This was all prompted by the question, “How does one establish an acceptable target to measure against?” posed by Catherine Waudby, Volume Planning Specialist at…
Tweet We’re familiar with application of the scientific method in certain industries, such as Pharmaceuticals. When a new drug is introduced, we expect that its safety and efficacy has been demonstrated through appropriately controlled experiments. For example, to test a new cold remedy we would find 100 people with colds, randomly give half the new…
Tweet I am pleased to announce the completion of my new book, “Fundamentals of Demand Planning & Forecasting.” To me, this is the most comprehensive book written in the area of demand planning and forecasting, covering practically every topic which a demand planner needs to know. This book discusses not only the different models of…
Tweet In his article titled “Seven Deadly Sins of Sales Forecasting” in the March 28 edition of APICS extra, Fred Tolbert compiled a useful list of bad practices than can worsen our forecasting, inventory management, and customer service results. I particularly liked Deadly Sin #5: Senior Management Meddling, and wrote about it on The Business…
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