WMAPE: The Denominator Debate
The denominator for WMAPE is passionately argued by many- should it be actual demand or forecasted demand? For starters, if the forecast error is small the denominator does not matter … Read More
Category: Metrics and Diagnostics
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 Forecasting itself. If forecasting is … Read More
Measuring Forecast Error – Constrained or Unconstrained Forecast?
Is it better to correct the actual sales for supply constraints and come up with a version of the actual demand that is unconstrained?
Measurement is an ex-post event that should not affect the actual forecasting process. If the Sales force is encouraged to think about a constrained forecast, the organization will lose visibility to the true unconstrained demand.
One option will be to use a disciplined process to measure true demand every month and evaluat the unconstrained forecast with this version of true demand.
Measuring Customer Service – Is Variety Causing Confusion?
There is confusion on the variety of measures used for measuring customer service. Let us survey the different metrics and get an input on how it is measured and what are the issues.
What To Measure or Forecast Accuracy – SKU/DC, SKU/National, SKU/Plant?
Although most demand planners and COE professionals understand the mechanics of these measures, there is some confusion on what to measure and why.
Measurement depends on what you are trying to drive – what you are using the forecast for? So level of aggregations matter as well. We explain some examples on what circumstances drive which measures.
Help My MAPE Is Negative!
I have heard frequently calls for help saying MAPE is high or other complaints saying MAPE is unreliable. Recently we encountered two situations where the calculated MAPE and even the … Read More
What Can Be So Difficult About Measuring Service Levels?
Line Fill Rate is an effective measure of supply chain performance. Fill Rate failure when properly diagnosed will give you much better information of what is hurting your supply chain so you can take corrective measures in time.
Is Statistical Modeling an After thought?
I have been preaching Usability for the past few years.
Put together fine tools – But help the users in making the transition to the tool – give them better understanding – Make the new tool more usable!
Give them the reports they need. Provide them an exception based workflow!
APO has good statistical models. They will help you move the peanut forward but only if they are understood and leveraged.
We just re-launched the marketing campaign for our Usability Consulting. Model tuning and model matching to product profiles are important elements of the Usability training.
Once implemented the Usability project will harmonize the use of models across planners from various geographies for the same business/product family. There will be streamlined work flow.
Automatic Outlier Detection – Blessing or Curse?
One of the puzzled questions that Demand Planners ask in our training workshops is why their software produces a flat forecast 90% of the time. An expensive software that took … Read More
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/DemandMetricsExcelTemp.htm. We will post the comparison shortly.