Over the next post I will
try to focus particularly on demand planning. No wonder, demand planning has
become a key part of any supply chain department, and its importance has grown
as the demand has become one of the key indicators for any end product.
But, how I got into demand
planning and forecasting?
Since I finished my degree
and started working at a Distribution Centre´s finance department, I was
instantly fascinated by supply chain, and became more and more interested in
pursuing a career in this field as the time passed.
The first drawback when I
started looking for a role in demmand planning came in the form of my
qualifications and background. Having a non engeenier degree was saw at first
as a handicap to pursue a career in supply chain by many people, but I was
determined to get my foot into a role that could provide me with the experience
and know how needed to start a succesfully career in logistics.
It wasn´t until I get the
opportunity to join the logistics department of one of the biggest companies in
its area of business when I realiced how lucky I was to have the opportunity to
work in an area that I love. And it didn´t take long before I corroborate how
amusing, dinamic and exciting the role of demand planner was.
I had a vague thought of
what demand planning was, and reduced it to putting a couple of years of sales
history into a forecasting software, sit and whatch the magic happen, obiously
it didn´t take me any long to realize that forecasting and planning is a
mixture of hundreds of different things and only if all of them run smoothly,
the whole system works.
Nowadays I try to keep
things simple, experience is key to stay ahead of the many aspects that may
affect the future demand of a particular product, whether this product will
feat in a catalogue or the strikes in a factory in China will delay the goods
you were expecting to receive in your warehouse, demand forecasting will always
be very influenced by certain elements that you won´t be able to control,
therefore, understanding the market you will be working in and the different
specific situations a product will go through until it reach the shelf of an
outlet will help, you but it won´t guarantee your predictions will be accurate.
Only when you try to see the big picture and encompass all the different
aspects you will be getting closer to a prediction that hopefully in the end will
not be too far from the real figure!
Forecasting and demand planning
is not a science, and the different elements involved in any demand analysis
will prevent any forecaster to present an exact figure, however, the
development of new forecasting systems has helped a lot to improve the
predictions we make.
In the next post I will try
to delve in some other aspects that make forecasting and demand planning one of
the most exciting areas to work in. I hope I see you around
