Impact of business forecasting on demand planning. A strategy for improving business forecasting and reducing inventories throughout the supply chain for fast moving consumer goods in the Middle East market.

摘要

Poor quality of information and forecasting create a number of problems forudmanufacturing companies, such as poor planning of products and insufficientudservice levels, which leads to increased inventory and stock holding orudstockouts and increased total costs.udCussons (UK) Limited is experiencing precisely these problems. Apart fromudthese problems normally associated with forecasting demand for fast movingudconsumer goods there is an additional problem of reconciling the Westernudcalendar with the Muslim calendar, and a recognition of the effects thatudMuslim religious holidays, as opposed to Christian religious holidays, haveudon demand. Muslim religious holidays rotate backwards with regard to theudWestern calendar, but in fact they occur at known dates and therefore theudeffect they have on demand for products can be taken into considerationudwhen attempting to forecast demand.udAn additional problem that influences Cussons' sales in the market is theudseasonal pattern of demand. Due to this, there is an increase in demand forudCussons' products during summer months. From the analysis of both dataudsets it was identified that the warehouse movement data is less variable andudmore reliable for business forecasting than order data.udIn this thesis, these forecasting problems are examined as a case study,udfocusing on these particular problems. To overcome these problems and toudimprove business forecasting of Cussons' products in the Middle Eastudmarket, a forecasting strategy has been suggested which will enableudCusson's to reduce the inventories throughout the supply chain and toudimprove their customer's service.