3 Things you need to be great at demand planning

Do you want your supply chain to be great at demand planning?
Here's what you need,
1️⃣ Forecast Value Added.
Without this, you are literally in the dark: you have no clue if your team (or software) is adding any value.
(And no, tracking forecasting accuracy and bias isn't enough.)
2️⃣ See Forecasting as an Information Game.
What do you know? How does this impact forecasts?
Here are the basics: Are there any new or quitting clients?
Any new/phase-out product?
If you master these questions, you should already be able to add much value.
3️⃣ Machine Learning!
Implementing machine learning is easy. And it will add tremendous value.
Machine learning can use information such as promotions, shortages, and price changes.
Even without these insights, it will still beat statistical models.
Bonus: ML can forecast new products without any historical data.

[@joshuabradshaw1647]

Love it! 🙏 Thanks for sharing Nicolas!
So once we have a great forecast using these three steps, how does one implement the inventory optimization element? I’d be curious to hear your top 3 on the IO portion.
Of course, your IO book goes into this quite well already!

[@Terracotta-warriors_Sea]

Thanks for the vides Nicolas! I have read all your books - what a fresh take! Please make a video for niche demand planners and inventory controllers to which I belong. That is MRO spare parts inventory which is fraught with intermittent demand and skewed probability distributions. If you ever revise your books 'Data Science for Supply Chain Forecast' and 'Inventory Optimization' please include these topics. I read your article on Croston Method in towards data science and it was very well written with a practitioner's perspective. Whenever possible please make a video on demand forecasting and inventory control for spare parts. Thanks!

[@joshuabradshaw1647]

Second this! Well said 👏