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?   

1. All order streams A to E should be considered?

2. Only relevant order streams coming from customers – B and E should be considered?

3. Only the Orders placed on plant (A and C) should be considered?

Which would be an appropriate choice? Should we be only looking at POS data for order streams originating from customers (B and E) placed on distributor and warehouse? Would other order streams cloud the demand plan

Now another debate – ‘Hey, should we consider orders or shipments for this analysis? For this read more here at ‘How do you define True demand for forecasting? details here – https://demandplanning.net/DemandDownload.htm

So, in that case what will happen to order streams from distributor to plant, warehouse and from warehouse to plant? Should we consider those for planning demand? Why?

Do third party distributors keep its inventory adjustments isolated from the plant? Keeping the plant guessing about next batch of orders. Where and how do we draw the fine line to differentiate demand planning vs replenishment planning?

In your job experience have you put on multiple hats of a buyer and of a demand planner?

To read responses on above from other industry folks, join the discussion on our LinkedIn group at – https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6529413793951281152