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ABSTRACT
In an environment marked by heightened uncertainty, forecasts have become indispensable to decision making. Within companies, these decisions are carried out from the strategic level design of logistic networks up to operational management decisions concerning materials and resources necessary for production and distribution. In order to meet this need, a significant number of quantitative and qualitative forecasting methods have been developed over the last decades. These approaches are mainly based on human judgment or statistical tools. This article describes, in a synthetic fashion, the principle of these methods, their characteristics, as well as their context and conditions of use.
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Mohamed Zied BABAI: Engineer from the National Engineering School of Tunis - Doctorate in Industrial Engineering from École Centrale Paris - Professor of Operations Management at BEM-Kedge Business School (France) - This article is an updated version of the article entitled "Forecasting methods – General presentation" by Jacques BALESTE, published in 2001.
INTRODUCTION
In an environment marked by increasing uncertainty, forecasting has become an integral part of most human activities, and essential to the smooth running of businesses.
As reaction times are often very short, companies need to forecast the evolution of several variables in their environment in order to better manage and optimize resources, which are generally costly. For example, sales forecasts are essential to all logistical decisions made by the company, given the short lead times required to deliver to customers, compared with the relatively longer production cycles. These decisions range from the strategic to the operational level. They include, for example:
at the strategic level: decisions on the number and capacity of production systems and distribution centers;
at the tactical level: planning operations and calculating material and resource requirements for production, distribution and transport;
at operational level: all decisions required for inventory and supply management, production scheduling, vehicle route planning, etc.
It is important to note that sales forecasting is an essential step in the preparation of a company's Industrial and Commercial Plan (ICP) and Master Production Plan (MPP).these two planning processes produce data that feed into the resource management system known as MRP (Material Requirement Planning).these tools are at the heart of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages, which help to optimize the company's resources and technical means, as well as to better satisfy customer demand .
Moreover, as part of the new Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment (CPFR) programs in integrated supply chains, forecasts are also essential to ensure better visibility of demand between manufacturers and trading partners .
This sharing of forecasts between the various players in the supply chain means that commercial plans can be integrated into operational schedules to ensure optimum performance, resulting in lower costs and better service to customers.
It should be noted that in exceptional cases, forecasts may not be essential in certain...
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KEYWORDS
strategy | statistical techniques | analytical methodology | prevention | decision making
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Logistics and Supply Chain
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