Innovative Planning, Superior Results.
I had the radio on in the background this morning and there was a discussion about Aguero’s missed penalty this weekend in the English Premier League. The discussion evolved to was it a poorly taken penalty or a well saved penalty. One panel member said that most top strikers just hit the ball down the…
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In recent articles we have spoken about the different types of demand you will see in your business how do you manage all that. Well as we looked at each part, forecasts, customer orders, stock demand, we discussed different methods for managing each one. Demand management is how we manage all those elements into one…
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Now that you hopefully understand the forecast process you can start to create one into the future to the end of the “forecast horizon”. So, is it best to use the quantitative (numbers) method or the qualitative (personal experience & opinion) method? My personal preference was to use a combination. I would use forecasting tools…
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Continuing on our look into the Forecasting process now we will look at the data you will use. Now that you know the method(s) you will use you have to start to Gather the data you need. We have covered some of this when discussing the types of forecasting methods (Qualitative or quantitative). You could…
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Continuing on our look into the Forecasting process now we will look at some forecasting methods. A key decision you will have to make is Choosing what method you will use. Qualitative or quantitative or most likely a mix of both. Quantitative methods look at historical data. Qualitative methods look at opinion. This can be…
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Now that you understand the basic concepts and elements of a forecast let’s look at the process for creating and maintaining such a forecast. Determine what the forecast is for. Determine how far out you will look and what the interval or buckets will be Determine what level of detail the forecast will look at.…
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You might think the first piece of demand we should cover is Customer Orders. Well for most businesses’ forecasts are more important. This is because the lead-time back through the supply chain is so long that you have to plan production based on a forecast of demand rather than actual customer orders. There are exceptions…
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Sales and Operations Planning is better known as S&OP. It is a common process designed to give management an overview of the expected performance of the business through the next few months with an objective of balancing supply and demand. It started in the 1980s with large multinational corporations but is now an increasingly mainstream…
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This is concerned with the transportation and storage of raw materials and finished products. It should still fit into the strategic plan but I’m going to separate it out on its own because it is often overlooked at this stage in the big picture and only addressed in more short term planning when it is…
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The Strategic plan is linked to the Business Plan and will have been set by senior management. It is still a very high-level strategic plan for the organisation but this is one you are more likely to encounter especially when annual goals are being set. Those goals are likely to have originated in the strategic…
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