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When it comes to running a company, when things break down executives have traditionally said “we need to improve our forecasting!” Would better forecasting accuracy be a good thing? Unfortunately, most companies cannot, and will never be able to, consistently rely on highly accurate forecasts. Absolutely!
I observe that organizations are unclear on outcomes and the definition of supply chain excellence. The data outcome is open source and can be used to improve project outcomes. Eleven of the thirteen industries studied are forecastable and stable over time. Supply chain excellence should be about driving value.
In May 2025, one in seven home-purchase agreements fell through resulting in the cancellation of 56,000 purchase contracts. Supply chain was defined in 1982 as interoperability between source, make and deliver. Most companies forecast a single stream with a focus on error. The ripple effects are pervasive.
In follow-up qualitative interviews, one of the largest issues with organizational alignment was metric definition and a clear definition of supply chain excellence. To manage continuous improvement, companies need a clear definition of excellence and organizational alignment to that goal. They do not excel in planning or forecasting.
Clear operating strategy and definition of supply chain excellence across plan, source, make and deliver. Most companies buy decision support technology, but do not redefine work to improve decisions. Improved Forecast Value Added (FVA). Instead, focus on Forecast Value Added analysis. What Does Good Look Like?
In 2012, when I started Supply Chain Insights , I believed that I could revolutionize the purchase of supply chain planning solutions by initiating a rating and review process across trading partners. Buying supply chain planning software is hard. How are people buying software? Here I share how to challenge the status quo.
Expand the “FLOW” program for logistics information sharing to forecast transportation flow. Source: Supply Chain Insights ASCM defines resilience in the SCM Supply Chain Dictionary as the ability of a supply chain to anticipate, create plans to avoid or mitigate, and to recover from disruptions to supply chain functionality.
This is because most classical planning solutions lack the modeling capability and computing power to accommodate different data sources, large SKU count, and detailed constraints and contingencies to build an immediately executable plan. The planning process should be automated, repeatable, and not dependent on Excel-based manipulation.
Given your expertise, I’d love to hear what alternatives you recommend for better demand forecasting and real-time visibility beyond what’s commonly adopted today.” The issues are largely rooted in politics and the lack of clarity on supply chain excellence. Or planned orders to purchase orders?) Go to the source.
The essence of the question is resilience and the ability to forecast in a variable market reliably. This gets us to the question of what is the role of the forecast?` For most, forecasting is a conundrum full of potholes, politics, and bias. I attempted and failed to: Use Point of Sale Data in Supply Chain Forecasting.
Today, supply chain excellence matters more than ever. I forecast that this interest will grow and the market is going to become more confusing. The discipline, first defined in 1982, includes source, make, deliver, and planning functions. Kinaxis Purchase of Rubikloud. The Rubikloud acquisition was a $60M cash purchase.
Production schedulers and planners work every day to balance limited labor, materials, production time, and availability of machines and tools against forecasted demand, customer orders, and the backlog. Forecasting and Production Planning for greater accuracy. Master Production Schedule (MPS) drives solid production plans.
Source Wikipedia. Consumers want to shop anywhere, and buy in the way that they want to buy. …there is not substitute for an accurate PI signal in supply chain excellence. Additionally, get good at forecasting. Measure your own Mean Absolute Error (MAPE) of your forecast and focus on driving improvement.
Reason #4 Making key decisions by modelling the supply chain in Excel. That got me thinking about why I was throwing away what had been perfectly good food; I had forecasted needing a certain amount, but the customers (my family) didn’t take what I’d forecasted. Better forecasts – Forecasts are always wrong!
Think of it as a single source of truth for everything from production planning and inventory management to financials, supply chain, and even the shop floor. JD Edwards EnterpriseOne: This platform specializes in discrete manufacturing , excelling in areas like shop floor control, quality management, and detailed product costing.
Nick Lynch is the Global Excellence Manager at Shell Lubricants, a division of Shell Global. The Company implemented SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (APO) including the standard functionality of Demand Planning (DP), Supply Network Planning (SNP), and Production Planning and Detailed Scheduling (PPDS), yet many planners also used Excel.
Definition: Financial forecasting is a projection of the company's future financial performance based on historical data, market research, and business needs. The forecasts act as a guide, which you can use to make strategic decisions on resource allocation and define clear, attainable goals.
Several factors contribute to customer loyalty, but providing excellent customer service—and a top-notch experience–is one of the most important in driving retention. 6 Examples of Excellent Customer Experiences. Image source: National Retail Association. Image source: Twitter. Image source: Ikea.
Introduction Gardner, (1954) and Huntzinger, (2007) define Purchase price variance (PPV) as a metric used to measure the effectiveness of cost-saving efforts by calculating the difference between the planned cost (standard pricing) allocated for purchasing activities and the actual cost incurred.
<Bear with me… > Here I share a nine-step process in an attempt to help companies unravel the process for buying supply chain planning software. They center on how to make a good decision in the purchase of supply chain planning solutions. Most have purchased software, but are dependent on Excel spreadsheets.
similarly, over 95% of manufacturers invested and implemented supply chain planning, but their primary tool today is Excel. This technique has been very useful for retail store inventory and MRO where demand is lumpy, latent, and difficult to forecast. ” Does the Dog Hunt? Makes sense. So, my conclusion?
A best-in-class solution must also support your workflows and a full range of processes including purchase orders, forecasting, capacity and inventory collaboration as well as quality management and coordination around supply risk. He is passionate about the role technologies play in driving supply chain excellence and business growth.
I would like for us to move past the conventional view of sourcing strategies and globalization to drive improvements to the supply chain in a variable world. The populist narrative of sourcing globalization is only part of the story. Forecastability. In 2015, the forecastable volumes were over 50%. Let me explain.
This means we need more agile, flexible, and scalable planning platforms to process and consolidate new data sources, drive insights using advanced analytics such as AI/ML to drive autonomous decisions, and expand collaboration within and outside our organizations. We need planning platforms to keep up with all the changes.
As an analyst in the supply chain market for 15 years, I have written many articles on best-of-breed technology companies purchased by a larger company. The initial software product release name was Real-Time Forecasting. DS replaced rules-based forecast consumption with better math (statistics and pattern recognition).
This blog explores procurement vs supply chain strategy and looks at how aligning the two leads to operational excellence. Procurement professionals focus on sourcing goods and services, negotiating with suppliers, and managing contracts. An inaccurate demand forecast can throw procurement plans into chaos.
He is a board member of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence (AME) and a contributor to the Forbes Technology Council , Manufacturing Today, WardsAuto , Supply Chain Brain, Industry Today, Aerospace Manufacturing and Design, ASSEMBLY , and more. Richard previously founded and led Factory Logic, Inc. acquired by SAP).
As product complexity increased, item forecastability decreased, and companies chased cost reduction. Many of these outsourced products have demand latency of weeks and months (shelf purchase through the replenishment cycle for a manufacturer to receive an order). The Network Enablement is Not Equal to the Opportunity.
The company’s focus on item proliferation resulted in 40% of items moving into a non-forecastable category. Since the company does not measure forecastability, the team continued to use traditional methods for forecasting, increasing the bullwhip effect and driving internal supply chain disruption.
With numerous options available across the source-to-pay spectrum, weve compiled the top three key technologies CPOs should embrace in 2025: 1. These procurement technologies empower teams to move beyond traditional methods, using data-driven insights for smarter sourcing, demand forecasting, and risk management.
Identify Bottlenecks & Opportunities: Quickly spot areas that are underperforming and need attention or areas where you’re excelling. Control Costs: Track value beyond just the purchase price and manage inventory effectively. High Days on Hand: Assessment: Is forecasting inaccurate? Our course breaks down TCO/TCS.
An efficient procurement process optimizes vendor selection and purchasing decisions to maintain cost-effective inventory levels. Core Drivers of Supply Chain Efficiency Supply chain efficiency is driven by three fundamental factors that shape operational excellence. Balancing efficiency with resilience isn’t always easy.
Among the various data sources at their disposal, point-of-sale (POS) data stands out as a crucial one. Using POS Data for Improved Sales & Demand Planning By leveraging POS data, companies can additionally (and accurately) forecast future sales, which is crucial for demand planning.
What is Source to Pay (S2P)? Yet in the case of source to pay, it is wholly justified. That said, many organizations, including large enterprises, may not think in terms of source to pay as an end-to-end process, if they think about it at all. Yet there are good reasons to do so. the public sector).
Dependency on Excel. Due to the shortfalls in the evolution of Advanced Planning, 68% of business users use Excel spreadsheets as the primary mechanism for planning. Excel–while widely used for planning–is not equal to the challenge of modeling complex supply chains. Don’t rush to buy. The result?
It was a story where people believed that functional excellence leads to supply chain superiority. I strongly feel that a blind focus on functional excellence will cause the supply chain to become out of balance. One that is going to eat you up! In part one of this blog series, I started the saga of the supply chain fairy tale.
The network senses, translates, and orchestrates market changes (buy- and sell-side markets) bidirectionally with near real-time data to align sell, deliver, make and sourcing organizations outside-in. It is about much, much more than Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI ) or Collaborative Forecasting and Replenishment. Demand Sensing.
The focus is on the role of supply chain finance in driving supply chain excellence. The design of the conference includes tours of several modern warehouses and centers of excellence. The budget is not sufficient and is often a detrimental input for supply chain forecasting. The supply chain forecast is a rolling forecast.
Keep in mind that a WMS may not be enough and you might need to add an Inventory Management System (IMS) , which focuses specifically on optimizing inventory levels, forecasting demand, and preventing stockouts or overstocking. Data-driven forecasting improves purchasing and cuts storage expenses.
The prevalence of smoking is going down, but the world’s population is increasing; the net result is that the forecast for the number of smokers is essentially flat in 2025 as compared to 2010. We needed to simulate multiple scenarios of significantly increased capacity and sourcing complexity, at speed and over a long planning horizon.
Love it or hate it, daily necessities need to be purchased. Whichever reasons fuel the motivations of your target market, here are the top trends shaping how they’ll buy – and how you can stay front of mind and ahead of the competition. Data source: eMarketer. eCommerce Purchases and “The New Normal” Retail Categories.
This makes demand patterns difficult to forecast, particularly for non-essential goods. Here are key strategies businesses can implement: Improve Demand Forecasting and Planning for Uncertainty Accurate demand prediction becomes significantly more challenging yet critically important during economic uncertainty.
On one extreme, there is an argument that forecasts are always wrong, “Why do them at all?” ” At the other end of the continuum is the argument that “ Forecast error is the most important metric to improve.” I do believe in demand planning, but most companies overstate forecast improvements.
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