17 Now it’s your turn!
Chapter after chapter, you learned the best practices that will lead you to demand planning excellence. These practices will ensure both efficacy (your forecasts are helpful to support your supply chain decisions) and efficiency (your teams work smart, not hard).
Figure 17.1 Demand planning excellence: efficacy and efficiency.
We structured these best practices using the 5-steps framework.
Figure 17 2-Steps Framework for demand planning excellence.
Following this framework will structure your improvement journey. Let’s recap the five steps.
1. Objective. What do you need to forecast?
Start by asking yourself (and your colleagues) what the demand forecast is used for: What decisions are you supporting with this forecast? Once you know these decisions, you can assess the relevant material, geographical, and temporal aggregation levels (Chapter 4) and the forecasting horizon (Chapter 5).
2. Data. What data do you need to support your forecasting model and process?