Blogs

AOP vs S&OP - The Metrics Scorecard

A well-designed Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) scorecard is essential for measuring the health of a business and aligning sales, operations, and financia ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
October 18, 2024

Customer Service Excellence, line fill rate, service metrics, order fill rate, on time delivery

Customer Service Metrics in Supply Chain Management

Customer service metrics are Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in the supply chain process and part of your Supply Chain Management (SCM) scorecard. These metrics evaluat ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
October 17, 2024

How moving average can beat Machine Learning?

Recently, there's been a lot of buzz on LinkedIn about Ai and machine learning revolutionizing demand forecasting. Some experts claim these technologies can crea ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
September 23, 2024

Addressing the Building Blocks in S&OP

Above is a general structure and sequence of the Sales and Operations Planning Process. In the S&OP planning process, the first step in the monthly cycle would be to review the key ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
August 28, 2024

forecasting software-ibp-demand planning-valtitude

What's wrong with Forecasting Software?

Most planning tools have so much complexity that planners give up on using them. Most of the planning software have given up on decent, time-tested models that have worked for the planning co ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
July 30, 2024

Transform Your Demand Planning Process

Transform Your Demand Planning Process If you want to transform the Demand Planning process at your organization, first do a little study of the different touchpoints betwe ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
July 29, 2024

Workshop: Demand Planning for S&OP- 2024

In-Person Workshop: Demand Planning for S&OP – March 2024, Pune India An accurate demand plan helps you reduce inventory costs and increase customer service levels. When ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
January 17, 2024

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Webinar: Analytics for Demand Consensus and Integrated ...

In our modes of S&OP, the Demand Consensus is the first step which provides the unconstrainted forecast to Supply. Demand Consensus starts with KPIs and a Statistical ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
November 15, 2023

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S&OP is not consensus - It is conflict resolution!

S&OP is NOT about achieving consensus with your supply planning team! The term "consensus" is often misinterpreted. The process of driving to Consensus is more import ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
October 17, 2023

Why Excel Isn't Enough: The Limitations of Demand Forec...

Demand planning is a critical function in supply chain management that requires accurate and timely forecasting of customer demand for products and services. However, many organizatio ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 02, 2023

S&OP: Emerging Trends and Innovations for Supply Chain ...

Today, we would like to talk about S&OP (Sales and Operations Planning) and its emerging trends and innovations for supply chain excellence and strategic planning. S&OP is ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 02, 2023

Forecasting Vs Planning

Forecasting vs Planning I recently read a post that distinguished between the two. Such a distinction seems academic at best for many reasons… I know several of you thin ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
March 30, 2023

Major Roadblocks to Capturing True Demand

Major Roadblocks to Capturing True Demand In the fast-paced and ever-changing world of business, it's becoming increasingly important for companies to capture true demand. Unde ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
March 16, 2023

Value with an Attitude - Podcast by Dr Mark Chockalinga...

Value with an Attitude - Podcast by Dr Mark Chockalingam ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
January 06, 2023

How Does Forecast Accuracy Matter Anyway?

How Does Forecast Accuracy Matter Anyway? I recently saw a post by Sujit Singh on LinkedIn that tabulated how one would rate different companies on their Forecasting process based ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
May 17, 2022

The New Supply Chain World order is here - Are we ready...

The New Supply Chain World order is here - Are we ready? Tectonic shifts are taking place in the global supply chain and the new world order is emerging at a furious pace. The ...

Dr. Mark Chockalingam|
May 17, 2022

ASQ BOSCON 2022 Conference

I spoke at the ASQ conference in Boston on November 7-8 ,which held at the hilton boston logan airport Title: Global Supply chain challenges heading into 2023 and ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
March 11, 2022

The Next Big Thing in Forecast Accuracy

The Next Big Thing in Forecast Accuracy My (Our) practical experience NOT just an opinion - of course, this post is not meant for experts who neither believe in forecast accuracy n ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
February 04, 2022

What is the ideal Forecasting bucket or micro-period?

What is the ideal forecasting (Time) bucket or micro-period? When it comes to dealing with time periods in forecasting, the periodicity or frequency of the forecasting cycle is one ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
January 12, 2022

Where Does It Hurts: Demand Planning Pain Points

Where Does It Hurts: Demand Planning Pain Points Demand planning is one of the most fundamental operations in supply chain. While planning for the future is already a challenge, as ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
November 15, 2021

S&OE - Sales and Operations Execution

S&OE - Sales and Operations Execution. My response is two-fold. MPS or Master Production scheduling is the process of assigning resources to meet the demand both short term ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
November 10, 2021

Where Are You In The Planning Journey?

Where Are You In The Planning Journey? The Pandemic has exposed NOT just the gaps in the infrastructure but also our processes and process mindsets. Are you still throwing Darts ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
November 09, 2021

America Is Running Out Of Everything!

America is running out of everything! This shortage may not be a supply chain problem - this is just a supply problem. Alarmingly, stagflation may not be the result. Stagflation ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
October 22, 2021

S&OP - Stop Looking For Consensus On Achieving A Single...

S&OP - Stop Looking For Consensus On Achieving A Single Number! The term "consensus" is often misinterpreted. The process of driving to Consensus is more important th ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
October 22, 2021

Where Does Your Company Stand In The Demand Planning Sp...

Where Does Your Company Stand In The Demand Planning Spectrum? Planning is about the future. Although historical demand is a good starting point, it is important to have a forward ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
October 22, 2021

Demand Patterns: The Backorder Bow Wave

Incorrectly diagnosing inventory planning issues can have massive consequences with respect to excess inventory, stock outs or both. The good news – by analyzing plan changes ov ...

Mac Rinehart|
September 30, 2021

Top five Major reasons to implement the S&OP Process Fo...

S&OP Implementation and S&OP Process Benefits Sales and Operation Planning (S&OP) is perhaps one of the most commonly used processs in many organizations but also commo ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
September 29, 2021

True Demand: A Key Building Block In Your Demand Planni...

True Demand: A Key Building Block In Your Demand Planning Process An important building block to creating an accurate demand plan is the veracity of your demand histor ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
June 23, 2021

Valtitude Workshops: Calendar 2021

Demand planning Net introduced our hands-on 3 day workshop on Demand planning for S&OP in Live – Virtual format on Sept 13 – 15, 2021. Demand Plannin ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 11, 2021

Beyond ERP Reports And Excel Spreadsheet

Beyond ERP Reports And Excel Spreadsheet It is well confirmed correlation between demand visibility and corporate profitability. Almost all organizations with better demand plannin ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
March 05, 2021

Customer Requested Delivery Vs Availability Delivery Da...

Customer Requested Delivery Vs Availability Delivery Date Does the customer really want the product to be delivered on the requested date? Some companies think this i ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
February 26, 2021

Calculating Attach Rates For Forecasting

Calculating Attach Rates For Forecasting Demand for Accessories can follow the path of the original equipment and can be highly correlated to the demand of the original item - but ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
February 26, 2021

How Do You Calculate True Demand?

How Do You Calculate True Demand? When calculating true demand, we need to classify the orders into the correct month of demand - it depends on when your customers wanted the ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
February 26, 2021

AI-machine-learning-demand-planning-S&OP-SCM-valtitude

AI - What is the Hype?

AI - What is the Hype? Today, AI sells everything from driverless cars to carless drivers... Everywhere you turn it is all about AI. Are we peaking on the hype cycle? There ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
January 30, 2021

Do We All Have Inventory Fetish?

Do We All Have Inventory Fetish? I mean the Lean Fetish that says Inventory is all evil. I just read a post on Linked-In that said Work-Center Utilization metric is a "Dysf ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
December 11, 2020

As Nasdaq Soars, Are We In a Bull Market?

As Nasdaq Soars, Are We In a Bull Market? Irrational exuberance?! Out of touch with reality?! Perhaps a dreamy La La Land of stocks and Index funds fueled by tweets and free mon ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
November 13, 2020

COVID-19 Response From Valtitude/Demand Planning Net

COVID-19 response from Valtitude / Demand Planning Net Valtitude / Demand Planning LLC has transformed our offerings and services to help our customers, employees and ven ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
August 19, 2020

New ML Methods For Improving Supply Chain Management

New ML Methods For Improving Supply Chain Management We are currently testing the Azure Machine Learning algorithms for demand planning to see what automated ML can bring for the p ...

Dr Mark Chockalingam|
August 19, 2020

Precision is key to your planning and execution. What i...

Precision is key to your planning and execution. What is your next step? What is your next step? Even if you have only one step to take and that will be a hop.... hop ... an ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 31, 2020

Should forecast accuracy be a stretch goal?

Should forecast accuracy be a stretch goal? Should forecast accuracy be a stretch goal? Many businesses are struggling with demand visibility and low SKU-level forecast accura ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 15, 2020

Best Practices of Forecast Pass in Demand Planning

Best Practices of Forecast Pass in Demand Planning The final moment when a demand plan attains Nirvana is when it is passes from the Demand side to the supply chain.... This tri ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 24, 2020

US has 2 Million Doses of an Unproven COVID-19 Vaccine?...

US has 2 Million Doses of an Unproven COVID-19 Vaccine? Ready to Ship? 2 million doses of an unproven vaccine? Ready to ship? Which one? Only Moderna has completed Phase 1 an ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 10, 2020

Bridging the gap between Demand Planning & Financial Fo...

Bridging the gap between Demand Planning & Financial Forecasting The Great Pandemic created the great disruption although not a dislocation yet - all of us are huddled inside o ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 28, 2020

Supply Shortages Continue during the Pandemic

Supply Shortages Continue during the Pandemic Month 3 of the pandemic - We are still out of stock on Hand Sanitizers, Face Masks and Gloves. If I ask the store clerk do you have a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 20, 2020

Certified Analyst in Demand Planning - Boston - MA

CADP is the first level of certification directed towards planners and analysts. The certification will give you a competitive edge to advance in your careers to become either Demand ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 19, 2020

Good tidings from the Peak - Summary from our modeled r...

Good tidings from the Peak - Summary from our modeled results All Models are wrong while some are useful. The most useful models are the ones that work with limited and imperfe ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
April 08, 2020

Volatile Markets - Signs for the Future

Volatile Markets - Signs for the Future The bubble has burst and the market crash has exposed many sins underlying the excesses of the past few years. Three significant factors ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 26, 2020

Modeling the Covid-19 and its global invasion

Modeling the Covid-19 and its global invasion The World has entered an unusual period in modern times - a large scale epidemic that is spreading like wildfire across the glo ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 24, 2020

Empty Store Shelves - Supply Chain risk assessment ...

Demand Bull-whip With the advent of the Corona Virus in the USA, there is pandemonium in the economy besides the pandemic that is creating a lot of turbulence. The US ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 23, 2020

Oil price at $25? How will US production survive?

Oil price at $25? How will US production survive? Is this an Arabian trick? Saudi Arabia has now set a unilateral price and decided to pump enough oil to flood the world. This w ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 19, 2020

Certified Analyst in Demand Planning - Boston - MA

Certified Analyst in Demand Planning - Boston - MA CADP is the first level of certification directed towards planners and analysts. The certification will give you a compet ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 24, 2020

The Bubble!!

The Bubble!! Are we in one - slowly heading up like that DisneyWorld Splash mountain ride before that exhilarating drop into the water splash?! The one difference between Spla ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 21, 2020

Corona Virus and the Global Supply Chain III

Corona Virus and the Global Supply Chain III The virus may be under control but the effects will start to show in the global supplychain for a few months. - a good portion of China is ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 20, 2020

Forecast overrides in Demand Consensus

Consensus Demand Planning - Forecast Overrides In a demand consensus process, a typical scenario could be an over-ride of the customer aggregated bottom-up forecast. Without worr ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 18, 2020

Corona Virus and the Global Supply Chain II

Corona Virus and the Global Supply Chain II The Chinese Government action in the wake of the Corona Virus crisis signals there could be a financial panic in China. China injected ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 06, 2020

How does Waze predict your arrival time so accurately?

How does Waze predict your arrival time so accurately? Waze and Google Maps are two of the most popular mapping and driving apps in the World, although my unscientific observation is ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 04, 2020

Trash your ABC classification!

ABC Classification for Inventory Management Trash your ABC classification! And do yourself a favor - start over again. The ABC classification was formulated about fifty+ years ago ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 04, 2020

Plan for Short Life Products

Plan for Short Life Products Planning for a short shelf-life or perishable supply chain can be challenging. A large part of the cost here is obsolescence - stuff that you throw a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 31, 2020

Can Safety Stock be negative?

Can Safety Stock be negative? Can your planning process allow for carrying no safety inventory or in the extreme a negative safety stock? In other words, can you ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 17, 2020

Who owns the Forecast?

Who owns the Forecast? Demand Planning as a function relies on customer information and sales intelligence that provides insights into customer activity. Most companies have ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 17, 2020

Product Life cycle and Trend

Product Life cycle and Trend Managing Product Life cycle in SCM can be an intricate challenge – this is a key factor for both Demand Management as well as Supply Chain ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 18, 2019

Valtitude Workshops: Calendar 2020

Valtitude/ Demand Planning Net offered two SCM workshops in 2020 - the first workshop on inventory optimization for Supply Planning held in February! ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 13, 2019

Is Demand Planning MIA?

Is Demand Planning MIA? Is Demand Planning missing in action in some companies? Or is it completely missing and never part of the operational planning process? I know smaller ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 09, 2019

Demand Planning vs S&OP Process Flow | S&OP Readiness

Demand Planning Vs S&OP Process Flow When people talk about Sales and Operations Planning, there is a grey area. In some of our diagnostic engagements I have noticed that ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 20, 2019

Usable Solutions: Valtitude's Core Mission

Usable Solutions: Valtitude's Core Mission Valtitude’s core mission is to provide usable solutions! Usable solutions that are worth the price and provide a c ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 18, 2019

PlanVida: Inventory Analytics

PlanVida: Inventory Analytics One of the roadblocks many small companies face (and some large Fortune 500 companies as well) is the lack of a clear insight into the alloc ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 11, 2019

Demand Planning LLC Partners with Vanguard Software to ...

Demand Planning LLC, based in Boston, MA, specializes in demand planning, S&OP, sales forecasting, and supply chain strategy. RALEIGH, N.C., Nov. 4, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ - A ...

PR Newswire|
November 04, 2019

Boston Workshops

We Organised a workshop in October 2019 - October 9 & 10 ‘Demand Planning and Sales Forecasting Workshop’ – Boston October 10 & 11 ‘ ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 09, 2019

Forecast Level Optimization

Forecast Level Optimization In a recent client engagement, there was some lively discussion on Demand Modeling using the Product/Customer Hierarchy. ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 27, 2019

The Science of Optimal Inventory

The Science of Optimal Inventory A key consideration to inventory optimization is to have a strategic view of how to allocate your inventory dollars among different t ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 16, 2019

Data Cleansing and Outlier Correction

Data Cleansing and Outlier Correction The SCM planning solutions market is getting pretty crowded these days - almost everyone has a solution on the cloud for Demand, ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 11, 2019

Tracking Signal: An effective KPI

What is Tracking Signal - Tracking signal is used to measure persistent bias - either under-forecasting or over-forecasting. This is a useful supply chain metric in the planner's tool k ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 16, 2019

Mumbai Workshops

Our August 2019 workshops were – August 7 & 8 ‘Demand Planning and Sales Forecasting Workshop’ – Boston August 8 & 9 ‘Inventory Managemen ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 07, 2019

What is new in SAP IBP 1908?

What is new in SAP IBP 1908? SAP IBP 1908 brings some much awaited updates to the advanced supply chain planning platform. Some are marginal enhancements while others are significant chan ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 30, 2019

Demand Sensing, DDMRP vs Demand Forecasting

What is Demand Sensing & How Does it Differ From Demand Forecasting? Demand sensing is a supply chain management technique that involves using real-time data and advanced analytics to better un ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 11, 2019

MAPE & WMAPE: The Denominator Debate | Forecast Ac...

What is MAPE & WMAPE? MAPE - Bias refers to persistent forecast error - Bias is a component of total calculated forecast error - Bias refers to consistent under-forecasting or over-forecas ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 02, 2019

What effects your organization’s readiness to IBP?

Is your organization ready for IBP? How do we know that we are implementing this nifty solution that could NOT be used if the process and people are not ready? ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 02, 2019

SAP-integrated-business-planning-valtitude

SAP IBP- Improving accuracy reporting with WMAPE

SAP IBP- Improving accuracy reporting with WMAPE SAP IBP defines additional metrics to evaluate the forecast quality of the statistical forecasts compared to what we had in SAP APO. The biggest imp ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 25, 2019

Demand Planning With True Demand

Demand Planning With True Demand For the following scenario which of the following historical orders data stream you would consider from a demand planning perspective? ...

Rohan|
May 01, 2019

Simplicity is NOT that easy in planning!

Simplicity is NOT that easy in planning! Some planners just are very proud of the fact that their business is complex – 20K SKUs, 20 DCs and thousands of customer sold-to location ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 18, 2019

Impact of Trade War on Global Supply Chain

Impact of Trade War on Global Supply Chain In 2017 we imported $500B worth of products exported about $125B. Here is a trend of Trade deficits over the last 15 years &nb ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 13, 2018

Statistical models in IBP vs. SAP SCM (Formerly APO)

SAP IBP Vs SAP APO (SAP SCM) As the leading authority on Model Tuning and Optimization in SAP SCM (formerly known as APO) we have extensively researched on modeling capabilit ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 04, 2018

Customer-specific SKUs vs Virtual warehouse

Customer-specific SKUs vs Virtual warehouse Should we create Customer-specific SKUs to reserve inventory for our best customers? I hear this client question often ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 22, 2018

Is WMAPE over-rated as an organizational KPI?

Is WMAPE over-rated as an organizational KPI? Many are taking shots at the very thought of measuring Forecasts itself leave alone with WMAPE. And some are taking shots at the discipline of ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 27, 2018

Can we combine the role of demand planning and supply p...

Can we combine the role of demand planning and supply planning? The Planner! Sounds like a movie title – the movie we have not seen and Pixar has not thought of…. What is ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 12, 2018

Sales Planning - What is their value add?

Sales Planning - What is their value add? Who are Sales Planners? Do you have a function called Sales Planning in your organization? Most companies call it Sales Planning or Sales Logi ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 12, 2018

The Bitcoin is the modern version of the Dutch Tulip!

The Bitcoin is the modern version of the Dutch Tulip! The Bitcoin has just breached 14K. One bitcoin is worth 14,000 US Dollars as of the close of the market on December 6th. It was trad ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 13, 2018

Supply Chain Transformation for Pharma

Leading brand name companies such as P&G, General Motors, General Mills are facing the onset of unknown competitors powered by big data analytics and technology ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 05, 2017

Measuring Forecast Error

Measuring Forecast Error Do you consider a Constrained or Unconstrained Forecast? I had a long conversation recently with the President of a CPG company on adding some form of Forecast quality a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 04, 2017

customer-service-demand-planning-valtitude

Measuring Customer Service: Variety causing confusion?

Measuring Customer Service: Variety causing confusion? The perfect method to measure customer service is to find out how your customer is measuring you. Over time organizational score cards&nbs ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 10, 2017

What to measure for forecast accuracy?

What to measure for forecast accuracy? What to measure for forecast accuracy? SKU/DC, SKU/National or SKU/Plant? It is now well settled that we want to use the Weighted MAPE to mea ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
April 20, 2017

17 Resolutions for a Demand Planner in 2017

17 Resolutions for a Demand Planner in 2017 Following are 17 suggested resolutions for your demand planning in 2017! 1. Trust the Stat Forecast . Although there are caveats, if tuned cor ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 21, 2017

Role of Sales Planning in Supply Chain Transformat...

Role of Sales Planning in Supply Chain Transformation When we think about IBP – Integrated Business Planning – we need to consider the roles of the various plann ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 03, 2016

Flexible Supply Chains – and broken links

Flexible Supply Chains and broken links “The measure of a person’s strength is not his muscular power or strength, but it is his flexibility and adaptability.” The sa ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 16, 2016

How successful is your Supply Chain?

How successful is your Supply Chain? Key factors for a successful supply chain – Product Assortment Visibility to Customer Wants and Needs Ability to successfully modi ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 12, 2016

From Bricks to Clicks

From Bricks to Clicks There is a huge competition amongst e-tailers and retailers to win customers by providing good customer service and quick delivery. Furthermore, all of this at a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 15, 2016

Inventory Counting with Drones at Walmart

Inventory Counting with Drones at Walmart Inventory Management has been a pain point for many companies – retailers, manufacturers and service companies alike. Companies have been figh ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 10, 2016

Target Supply Chain Initiatives – Managing Suppliers

Target Supply Chain Initiatives – Managing Suppliers In the past few years Target has expanded its business into selling fresh produce, meat and other perishable food items. With bein ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 07, 2016

Are you still using Excel for Forecasting?

In recent interactions with many companies, we have observed that people don’t use a specialized tool for forecasting. Yes, they do most forecasting in EXCEL. ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 27, 2016

Sailing through the SAP APO Ocean

Sailing through the SAP APO Ocean As we all know SAP is an Ocean where the chance of getting lost is quite high. Below are key takeaways from my experience while working o ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 01, 2015

Demand Planning Seminar in Chicago

October Demand Planning and APO workshop I am just getting ready for the Chicago trip – our annual event in Demand Planning. But this ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 24, 2015

True demand for supply chain Planning

True demand for supply chain Planning Quite often we get these questions from our constituents and Network members about the definition of demand. 1) Can I consider shipments as my demand? ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
April 26, 2015

Help my MAPE is negative!

Help my MAPE is negative! I hear frequently calls for help saying MAPE is high or saying MAPE is unreliable. Recently we encountered two situations where the calculated MAPE & WMAP ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
April 15, 2015

https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/black-swan-cygnus-atratus-illustrated-by-elizabeth-gould_3533745.htm#page=1&query=Black%20swan&position=14

Where are the Black Swans?

The importance of Black Swans in our planning process Our everyday experience in Social media appears to be clouded by a few words and excitement. ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 31, 2015

Is S&OP an Event?

Is S&OP an Event? What is the state of S&OP today? I interact with supply chain professionals in conferences and consulting assignments across different industry verticals.&nbs ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 14, 2014

window-dressing-supply-chain-score-carding-valtitude

Window-dressing and Supply Chain Score-carding

Window-dressing and Supply Chain Score-carding When we review Supply Chain Dashboards, there are a variety of colorful metrics. Are they the right metrics – Are they calculated right ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 12, 2014

Difficulty in measuring Service Levels

Difficulty in measuring Service Levels In some recent visits, I have noticed something interesting about KPI Reports & the calculations used. It appears ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 11, 2014

Demand Planning & Sales Forecasting Boston Workshop

Demand Planning & Sales Forecasting Boston Workshop During the Demand Planning and Sales Forecasting workshop in Boston, we will be discussing the demand planning challenges in Oil & ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 01, 2014

Optimizing the Order to cash process - What is your ...

Order to Cash Process When companies take a hard look at their business model and the underlying process, what is the key objective that is motivating them? 1. Return on Investment ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 05, 2013

A correlation between Inventories & Forecasting?

A correlation between Inventories & Forecasting? Some say yes………. and some say no! There are many things questionable about Statistics and Modeling and of cou ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 03, 2013

How to create models for weekly Forecasting in SAP...

SAP APO for Weekly Forecasting Generally, demand planners forecast at the monthly level since forecasts are well behaved and seasonality is easy to identify in months. But ther ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 05, 2013

Planning Software - Part 1: How important is Inte...

How Important is Integration ??? Continuing on this discussion on the important properties of a Planning Software application, I will discuss integration this week. What is integration ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
April 21, 2013

Planning Software - What should it be?

Planning Software – What should it be ??? Having worked with many software applications for planning – demand, supply, finance, and S&OP – I have experienced a sense ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 10, 2013

Coming to Oil & Gas Country - Demand Planning and ...

Coming to Oil & Gas Country - Demand Planning and Forecasting - Texas Feb 2013 We will be hosting our first ever public workshop in Texas due to popular request from our Oil & Ga ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 16, 2012

Keep Cribbing or Find Solutions

Keep Cribbing or Find Solutions There was an interesting technical issue at a client using SAP SCM with substantial investment in demand planning using SCM tools. After so ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 02, 2012

Demand Sensing, Demand Shaping and Demand Management ...

Demand Sensing, Demand Shaping and Demand Management - Are demand planners doing these activities today? Demand Planning Net focuses on the disciplines of Demand Forecasting, ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 26, 2012

Forecast Error Benchmarking across various industry -...

Forecast Error Benchmarking Our Newsletter readers and forum participants ask very frequently: · Which metrics should I use to measure my forecast performance – WMAPE, MA ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 22, 2012

Demand Planning = Unlocking Stat Models + Engaging...

Throw away that application software if that is not usable! Your planners may have already boycotted the tool and resorted to Excel and offline analytics for most of their planning work. T ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 04, 2012

How good are your stat models in APO DP?

Statistical models in APO DP Find out and bench mark with your peers from companies such as Michael Foods, Chemtura, Newell Rubbermaid, Johnsonville Sausage at our upcoming workshops. Wi ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 27, 2012

demand-segmentation-forecast-analysis-valtitude

Demand Segmentation and Forecastability Analysis

Are you creating Forecasting classes using your Supply chain’s ABC classification? Bad idea!! I have preached Usability and Model tuning for demand planning applications like SAP, JDA ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 14, 2012

forecast-reconciliation-proportional-forecasting-valtitude

Forecast Reconciliation and Proportional Forecasting...

Demand Planning just published our first e-Book Forecast Reconciliation and Proportional Forecasting! This is the first direct-to-Kindle book from Demand Planning, and we’re proud ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 28, 2012

Silver bullets to tackle intermittent demand problem

Tackle intermittent demand problem Intermittent demand or sporadic demand is a fact of life. In many cases, demand occurs in one lump followed by periods of no demand. What drives ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 18, 2012

The use of the NORMSINV Formula function in Safety...

NORMSINV Excel Formula function in Safety stock calculations There was a question on Linked in about the use of the NORMSINV function in Excel. Initially the poster mentioned the NORMSDIST ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 28, 2012

Is Statistical Modeling an After thought?

Is Statistical Modeling an After thought? I just had a conversation with a Fortune 500 executive recently. He mentioned his company is spending tens of millions of dollars cu ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 21, 2012

Slow Moving, Short History and Intermittently demanded...

Slow Moving, Short History and Intermittently demanded products – How to forecast? Every time we come across a slow-moving item, we have to spend quite a bit of time analyzing the dif ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 01, 2012

Automatic Outlier detection - Blessing or Curse?

Automatic Outlier detection - Blessing or Curse? One of the puzzling questions that Demand Planners ask in our training workshops is why their software produces a flat forecast 90% of th ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 03, 2012

Moving the ROC to forecast.......

Moving the ROC to forecast....... We hear quite often, that forecasting is a waste of time. People often cite the weatherman and laugh at forecasts and forecasting as a productive pro ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 06, 2012

Questions on Demand Planning Training Workshop in ...

Questions on Demand Planning Training Workshop in India In response to our workshop announcement, we have received several emails with number of questions. Given that we have only ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 13, 2011

Draper Team Aims to Improve Predictions Through SPADE...

Press Release from Draper Laboratories CAMBRIDGE, MA – Draper Laboratory is leading a team that aims to improve long-term intelligence predictions through software that weights most ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 07, 2011

Demand Planning and Forecasting in Bengaluru, India...

Demand Planning and Forecasting in Bengaluru, India January 27-28, 2012 After a two year hiatus, I am looking forward to facilitating our hugely popular two day workshop on Demand Planning ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 29, 2011

SKU level forecasting or aggregate planning - the ...

SKU Level Forecasting Talk to any supply planner, they will say they need a forecast at the SKU level. The more detail the better. So the demand planner is on the defensive, he nee ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 06, 2011

Why moving averages in APO DP rarely move?

Why moving averages in APO DP rarely move? When I was a beginning student of Statistics in High School, I was fascinated by moving averages. This is pretty cool stuff to get an avera ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 07, 2011

Predicta Forecasting Tool - New Kid on the block!!...

Predicta Forecasting Tool - New Kid on the block!! We had the opportunity to test drive the Predicta Forecasting application over the last couple of weeks. This is an Excel add-in sof ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 18, 2011

One day workshop on Statistical Modeling and Metri...

One day workshop on Statistical Modeling and Metrics in SAP APO DP If you are using SAP APO, did you notice APO DP calculates and defines error metrics with its own unique formula that is d ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 29, 2011

Forecasting Efficiency Quotient (FEQ) vs. GMRAE

Forecasting Efficiency Quotient (FEQ) vs. GMRAE There are more questions on the comparison between FEQ and GMRAE. Please review the material on the http://www.demandplanning.net/ ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 26, 2011

The Forecasting Efficiency Quotient

The Forecasting Efficiency Quotient As demand planners, have we added value through forecasting? Is your forecasting effort efficient? You can answer in the affirmative, if your di ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 25, 2011

How to forecast in excel? Join us on September 21-...

How to forecast in excel? Join us on September 21-22, 2011 in Boston at the Demand Planning Tutorial. Based on some of the inputs from our clients, workshop attendees and the chatter on Lin ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 22, 2011

Demand Metrics for Forecast Diagnostics

Demand Metrics for Forecast Diagnostics We just published a new Demand Metrics Diagnostics Template for all DPNet users. This template is provided as a reference to calculate the health ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 13, 2011

Calendar effect in forecasting

Calendar effect in forecasting As we know last weekend was long holiday for US. Our sales was also affected. So for forecasting can anybody suggest how to include calendar effects in ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 13, 2011

Demand Planning and Forecasting workshop, Septembe...

September 21-22 at Four Points by Sheraton Our recently concluded May 2011 two day Demand Planning and forecasting workshop was an immense success. I personally enjoyed the interaction ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 29, 2011

Forecast Bias over Tracking Signal

Forecast Bias over Tracking Signal Tracking Signal is used to measure forecasting bias over time for the same SKU/Product especially when bias approaches extreme proportions and crosses a t ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
March 05, 2011

Forecast accuracy (%)

Forecast accuracy (%) - Valtitude Regarding the measurement of the forecast accuracy I would like to ask a question. The Formula 1 below shows a common (or intuitive) suggestion a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 16, 2010

Confusion of MAPE/MPE calculation

Confusion of MAPE/MPE calculation I have some confusion of MAPE/MPE calculation, since the source is different, the methodology is also different, indeed confused. For MAPE, 1)average o ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 24, 2010

Customer Focused Supply Chain Collaboration

Customer Focused Supply Chain Collaboration I will be speaking on Customer Focused Supply Chain collaboration on Wednesday Oct. 13th at the Bear & Grill Restaurant, Orange CT at 6:30pm ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 13, 2010

The mystery of Moving Averages

A user in an APO forum lamented: “I am trying to use the Moving Average option in APO DP but I get a static forecast that remains constant for all the future months based ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 10, 2010

Forecast Modeling capabilities in SAP APO vs. othe...

Forecast Modeling capabilities in SAP APO vs. other statistical tools I will take SAS software and Forecastpro as benchmark tools here to compare the capabilities of APO DP. Between SAS ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 29, 2010

Calculating MAPE - special cases: Obsolete Stock

Calculating MAPE - special cases: Obsolete Stock When calculating MAPE what is recommended when actuals are positive but forecast is 0 (for example when clearing obsolete stock)? Can ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
February 05, 2010

demand-volatility-forecast-accuracy-valtitude

Demand Volatility vs Forecast Accuracy

Demand Volatility vs Forecast Accuracy There was a post on one of the Linked-in Groups that got my attention today. How do you reduce demand volatility using better forecasting? Fo ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 29, 2009

Using Orders to predict POS?!

I saw this linked in comment in a discussion group: “I hate to get technical”. That expression always bothered me, but I am wondering who IS getting technical….who is usi ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 16, 2009

Value Chain Metrics and Score-carding

Value Chain Metrics and Score-carding One of the Key steps to improving your Value chain is to measure and score-card the current state. If you don’t measure where you are, how ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 06, 2009

Demand Planning for CPG Companies

Demand Planning for CPG Companies - Valtitude Consumer Packaged Goods Companies seeking forecasting accuracy improvement are faced with a number of issues such as: • Data availabili ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
December 04, 2009

Too Big to Fail? Too small to save? Too inefficien...

Too Big to Fail? Too small to save? Too inefficient to work with? Too old school to educate? Policy makers hang on to the idea, or more like fear, that it is too risky to let big banks fail ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 17, 2009

Business Forecasting when trend is not your friend...

Business Forecasting when trend is not your friend....... In the demand forecasting tutorial in New Jersey, there was a key question on forecasting during a recession. Forecasting is ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 10, 2009

Excellent participation in the Forecasting Tutoria...

Excellent participation in the Forecasting Tutorial The forecasting workshop on Oct 22 and 23 held at Whippany, NJ was well attended by companies from different industries from Consumer goo ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
November 03, 2009

Demand Planning and Forecasting Tutorial - May 6-7...

Demand Planning and Forecasting Tutorial - May 6-7, 2010 Workshop is conducted on Thursday and Friday, so you can spend the Spring weekend in gorgeous Lexington, MA or see the yachts ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
October 15, 2009

Bull-whipping or driving the Demand?

Bull-whipping or driving the Demand? Bullwhip effect is a phenomenon of demand being overestimated or underestimated as it passes through various stages of supply chain resulting in exagger ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 27, 2009

Is SAP APO DP complicated?

Is SAP APO DP complicated? I have heard feedback from many business users and demand planners that SAP APO DP is complicated. Some think it is too rigid!! I have heard that it i ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 04, 2009

SAP APO Demand Planning - usability versus functio...

SAP APO Demand Planning - usability versus functionality I have heard from Consultants and business managers across many companies: Very rarely there is user adoption of standard APO f ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
September 04, 2009

Forecast Alerts

Forecast Alerts! Popular software packages have forecast alert monitors. Each software may term it differently: 1. Manugistics calls them lists 2. APO and Dematra call the ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 20, 2009

Tracking Signal

What is Tracking Signal? Tracking signal is a measure used to evalue if the actual demand does not reflect the assumptions in the forecast about the level and perhaps trend in the demand pr ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
August 06, 2009

Can we use Multiple Linear Regressions to model sa...

Can we use Multiple Linear Regressions to model sales promotions? The simplest approach to model promotions is through interventions. This is also called event modeling in the literature. W ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 29, 2009

Model Diagnostic - R squared or MAPE?

Model Diagnostic - R squared or MAPE? We have now settled that MAPE or Mean Absolute Percent Error is the measure for forecast performance for a planner/Division at the end of the month.&nb ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 29, 2009

Inventory Optimization vs. Days on hand

Why is it important to learn new techniques than banking on century old DOH measure? The Days of Supply is a thumb rule calculation used to manage inventory during the era of green accounti ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 20, 2009

Is MAPE controversial?

Is MAPE controversial? MAPE = Mean Absolute Percent Error. This is the common error measure used by the Supply Chain profession. Demand Planners and Demand Forecasters spread ac ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 10, 2009

Hello Demand Planners!

Welcome to the forecasting blog! These are collection of thoughts on forecasting, demand planning, Sales and Operations planning and corporate strategy! Please contribute your t ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
July 09, 2009

How to check out the contents of a SAS format library?

SAS format library To check out the contents of the format library, we use the proc format statement with a fmtlib option. proc format fmtlib library=catlgdata; select ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
June 29, 2009

Converting Date formats in SAS

How to Change OR Converting Date Format in SAS SAS is very helpful but can be complex as well. Because of the flexibility it offers, it has to be necessarily complex. The m ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 30, 2009

How to use INTNX Funtion In SAS - Quick Guide with Exam...

INTNX Funtion In SAS The SAS INTNX function is very useful however you should be careful when using the time increments. If you use next_month=intnx('month',t ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 29, 2009

Creating Weighted Statistics in SAS

Creating Weighted Statistics in SAS I wanted to use Proc means to calculate weighted statistics but the options seem too involved. In the specific example, you have hundred ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 27, 2009

Importing a flat file can be tricky if the first row co...

Importing a file into SAS We need to know that SAS uses the first row of data right after the header row as a guide for the values by column! So if the first row contains a ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
May 26, 2009

S&OP Best practice: Engage in ongoing cross-funct...

S&OP Best practice: Engage in ongoing cross-functional communication rather than wait for “the meeting” once a month! S&OP Best practice: Engage in ongoing c ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 18, 2025

Best and Worst Practices in Demand Planning

Best and Worst Practices in Demand Planning The New Jersey Chapter of APICS invited me to present a one-day training workshop that elaborates on the best practices speech I have been giving ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 18, 2025

Response to MAPE and MPE Calculations - Mark Chock...

Response to MAPE and MPE Calculations - Mark Chockalingam Thanks to Yingli for the question. Here are the equations that you originally sent through email. ? ==> This calculates th ...

Dr. Chockalingam|
January 18, 2025

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