Account Based Forecasting, also known as Customer Planning or Customer Specific Forecasting (CSF), refers to a bottom up demand forecasting process which starts with customer retail forecast, then arrives at a customer shipment forecast to be aggregated into a supply chain forecast.

All Commodity Volume. It is the base used in reporting a products retail distribution. This measure is a ratio of annual sales by individual store to the geographical set.

 The Association for Operations Management offers certification in supply chain management and resource management.  The two different certifications are titled CPIM and CIRM. 

Advanced Planner and Optimizer, the planning software from SAP AG. It is designed to help a company improve production planning, pricing, scheduling, and product shipping.

Assemble to Order

Available to Promise

Bill of Materials

Consensus Business Planning

Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management

Certififed in Integrated Resources Management.CIRM is a comprehensive educational program designed to help you understand the power of collaboration among organizational resources such as product development, marketing/sales, human resources, finance, and operations.

Collaborative, Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment is a concept popularized and institutionalized by the VICS organization to enable manufacturers and retailers to better collaborate on forecasting and promotional planning to achieve supply chain efficiencies.

Consumer Packaged Goods, refers to the manufacturers and supplies in the Packaged Goods industry, a very specific reference to companies that manufacture or distribute Consumer Packaged Goods to the retail environment.

Certified in Production and Inventory Management, a certification offered by the APICS, the Association for Operations Management.

Customer Relationship Management; the process and discipline to analyze the trade funds, promotional planning and execution and evaluating the effectiveness of promotions. Oracle CRM, Siebel, and SAP CRM are the dominant players in this space. Siebel and Demantra have been acquired by Oracle.

Continuous Replenishment Program, another term to denote VMI or Vendor Managed Inventories, where the supplier or manufacturer monitors the inventory at the customer warehouse on a continuous basis and writes the orders on behalf of the customer to ensure warehouses are adequately stocked.

Certified Supply Chain Professional

Configured to Order

Distribution Center as an integreal part of the order fulfilment process is a specialized building designed for storage, before redistribution to another location or directly to customers.

Demand Driven Supply Networks as a method of supply chain management involves the process of building supply chains in response to demand signals.

Demand Planning, a functional and subject reference to the forecasting group and role

Distribution Requirements Planning is a systematic process to make the delivery of goods more efficient by determining which goods, in what quantities, and at what location are required to meet anticipated demand.

Direct To Channel

Electronic Data Interchange is charecterised with electronic communication of business information.

Economic Order Quantity can be defined as the the number of units that is required to be added to inventory with each order to minimize the total costs of inventory.

Engineered to Order is an environment in which business manufactures unique products designed to customer specifications. There will be a high level of customer participation in the design and manufacturing process of the product.

Flu Alert Network

Finished Goods are products which have completed the manufacturing process thus ready for delivery to customer

Fast Moving Consumer Goods are products that are sold quickly and at relatively low cost.

Free Standing Insert , AKA "Coupon" is an advertising brochure, card, or leaflet inserted in a newspaper or magazine, usually to serve the purpose of a reply coupon or discount voucher.

Integrated Business Planning

Integrated Business Planning (IBP) is a strategy for connecting the planning functions of each department in an organization to deliver one seem management process.

Inventory Optimization is the process of balancing capital investment constraints of inventory across multiple stock-keeping units.

Just In Time is a methodology is an inventory system with a management strategy aimed primarily at reducing flow times within production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers.

Key Performance Indicator is a of performance measurement that gauges how effectively a company is able to acheive key objectives.

Less than Truck Load is the shipping or transportation of relatively small freight.

Mean Absolute Deviation, similar to MAPE before it becomes a percentage error. Academics respect this measure, largely due to confusion and misinterpretations around the MAPE.

Mean Absolute Percent Error a cross sectional measure to calculate the demand forecast error across products, customers, divisions etc.

Materials Requirements Planning is a production planning and inventory control system used for calculating the materials and components to manage manufacturing processes.

Month to date can be described as the number of months that have passed by since the beginning of the cycle.

Month to Go can be described as the number of months remaining till the cycle ends.

Made to Order, a type of production and inventory strategy that starts the manufacturing process only on receipt of the customer order. The manufacturer has the luxury of making the customer order, (and perhaps pay) and wait. Dell is a classic example of a MTO business model.

Made to Stock, a production and replenishment model that keeps inventory of products, anticipating customer orders.

Oil Field Services

Ordinary Least Squares, the most basic methodology for model fitting by choosing the model that minimizes the residual error.

Over The Counter or off exchange trading is done directky between two parties.

Percent Mean Absolute Difference

Point of Purchase records the time and place where a retail transaction is completed

Point of Sale records the time and place where a retail transaction is completed

Root Mean Squared Error, a measure of model diagnostic and with more application in inventory management to set parameters for safety stock calculations.

Sales and Operations Planning can be defined as an integrated business management process through which the organisation achieves focus, alignment and synchronization among all functions continually.

Supply Chain Operations Reference Model is a management mechansim used to address, improve, and communicate supply chain management decisions within a company as well as to their suppliers and customers

Sales, Inventory and Operations Planning is a key business process driven from an organisations strategic plan providing valuable information such as updated sales, production and inventory.

Stock Keeping Unit is a unique identificationof assigned to a particular product or service that allows for it to be tracked for inventory purposes.

Supplier Managed Inventory, very similar to VMI except here the manufacturer lets their inventories be managed by a supplier of key components and input products.

Supply Network Planning using advanced optimization techniques; integrates purchasing, manufacturing and distrubution to implement comprehensive tactical planning and decision making based on single consistent model.

Vendor Managed Inventories, where the supplier or manufacturer monitors the inventory at the customer warehouse on a continuous basis and writes the orders on behalf of the customer to ensure warehouses are adequately stocked.

Weighted Absolute Percent Error. The same as weighted MAPE. 

Work in Process refers to partially finished goods awaiting completion at various stages of the production process including raw materials, labour and overhead costs incurred.