A surge nobody planned for
A large food customer launches a seasonal range and orders three times their usual volume of cartons with two weeks' notice. Their forecast, sent a month ago, did show it, in a spreadsheet attached to an email to a sales rep who was on holiday. The plant scrambles: extra board at short notice, overtime, other customers' jobs pushed back.
Other customers send forecasts that are consistently optimistic, and planning has learnt to ignore them. The result is that nobody really plans ahead.
Forecasts arrive, but go nowhere
Large customers often share rolling forecasts, weekly or monthly, from their own planning systems. Each format is different. They arrive by email to sales or customer service, and turning them into something planning can use is a manual job that often does not happen. Without comparing forecasts with actual orders, nobody knows which customers' forecasts are reliable.
- Forecasts arrive in different formats from each customer.
- They go to sales, not to planning.
- Forecast products are not mapped to your product codes.
- Forecasts are never compared with actual orders.
- Demand is not translated into board and machine hours.
The price of planning from firm orders only
Planning from firm orders alone means reacting to surges rather than preparing for them, with rush board, overtime and late deliveries to other customers. It also makes board purchasing more expensive and less predictable. Capacity decisions, such as adding a shift or buying a machine, are made on instinct. And customers who take the trouble to send forecasts see no benefit from doing so.
Customers notice when forecasting is not taken seriously. A buyer who shares a forecast and still gets a late delivery on the surge they warned you about will wonder why they bother, and some will start splitting their volume with a second supplier as insurance.
Forecast intake we build
- Each customer's forecast format is mapped once, and forecasts sent to a dedicated address are read automatically.
- Customer product codes are mapped to your product specifications.
- Forecast demand is compared with each customer's actual order history, and a reliability measure is shown per customer and product.
- Expected demand, weighted by that reliability, is converted into board requirements and machine hours per week.
- The planner sees a demand view by week, machine and board grade, with surges highlighted weeks ahead.
- Significant changes between one forecast and the next are flagged to sales, so they can talk to the customer.
| Planning question | Answered now by | Answered with forecast intake |
|---|---|---|
| What is coming next month? | Firm orders only | Forecast plus orders |
| Which forecasts can we trust? | Instinct | Reliability by customer |
| How much board do we need? | Per job, at short notice | Weekly requirement by grade |
| Is a machine overloaded? | When it happens | Load weeks ahead |
Planning ahead of the order book
Planning sees surges coming and prepares: board ordered earlier, jobs sequenced, capacity arranged. Sales has better conversations with customers about their forecasts, because they know how reliable they have been. Board buying becomes steadier. And big decisions about capacity are based on an honest picture of expected demand.
Is your plan only as good as today's orders?
- Customer forecasts arrive but are not used by planning.
- Demand surges from large customers catch you out.
- You do not know which customers' forecasts are reliable.
- Board is ordered at short notice for large orders.
- Capacity decisions are made without a demand view.