Forecast vs Actual Reporting

We are often asked what the difference is between these two important performance metrics. While they are both important for measuring how successful a business is in meeting demand, their meaning is very different.  If not understood and incorporated into the strategic inventory planning process, inventory will be inefficiently allocated resulting in lower customer service and higher carrying costs.  We’ve illustrated the difference in this 4 minute recording using Microsoft Excel.

Smart Operational Analytics automatically calculate historical service levels & fill rates across any item.  Summary reports provide overall and item specific performance with comparisons to historical inventory values.