The Smart Forecaster

Pursuing best practices in demand planning,

forecasting and inventory optimization

Inventory control policies and strategies for a more profitable business

In this Video Dr. Thomas Willemain, co–Founder and SVP Research, defines and compares the three most used inventory control policies. These policies are divided into two groups, periodic review and continuous review. There is also a fourth policy called MRP logic or forecast based inventory planning which is the subject of a separate video blog that you can see here. These videos explain each policy, how they are used in practice and the pros and cons of each approach.

Maximize Machine Uptime with Probabilistic Modeling

If you both make and sell things, you own two inventory problems. Companies that sell things must focus relentlessly on having enough product inventory to meet customer demand. Manufacturers and asset intensive industries such as power generation, public transportation, mining, and refining, have an additional inventory concern: having enough spare parts to keep their machines running.
This technical brief reviews the basics of two probabilistic models of machine breakdown. It also relates machine uptime to the adequacy of spare parts inventory.

Want to Optimize Inventory? Follow These 4 Steps

Service Level Driven Planning (SLDP) is an approach to inventory planning based on exposing the tradeoffs between SKU availability and inventory cost that are at the root of all wise inventory decisions. When organizations understand these tradeoffs, they can make better decisions and have greater variability into the risk of stockouts. SLDP unfolds in four steps: Benchmark, Collaborate, Plan, and Track.

Four Ways to Optimize Inventory

Inventory optimization has become an even higher priority in recent months for many of our customers. Some are finding their products in vastly greater demand; more have the opposite problem. In either case, events like the Covid19 pandemic are forcing a reexamination of standard operating conditions, such as choices of reorder points and order quantities.