SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT I THUMBS UP FOR ANSWERS TO ALL 10 QUESTIONS 1. What role
ID: 392389 • Letter: S
Question
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT I THUMBS UP FOR ANSWERS TO ALL 10 QUESTIONS
1. What role does forecasting play in the supply chain of a build-to-order server manufacturer such as Dell?
2. How could Apple use collaborative forecasting with its sup- pliers to improve its supply chain?
3. What role does forecasting play in the supply chain of a mail- order firm such as L.L. Bean?
4. What systematic and random components would you expect in demand for chocolates?
5. Why should a manager be suspicious if a forecaster claims to forecast historical demand without any forecast error?
6. Give examples of products that display seasonality of demand.
7. What is the problem if a manager uses last year’s sales data instead of last year’s demand to forecast demand for the com- ing year?
8. How do static and adaptive forecasting methods differ?
9. What information do the MSE, MAD, and MAPE provide to a manager? How can the manager use this information?
10. What information do the bias and TS provide to a manager? How can the manager use this information?
Explanation / Answer
1. Forecasting plays an important role in supply chain of a build to order in case of Dell as they acquire all the components on the basis of their prediction on no. of customer orders which they will be receiving. Forecasting help them in predicting future demand based on which they decide on the quantity required and the capacity needed to build.
2. Collaborative forecasting means all the supply chain partners share information that impacts the demand and predicts key things related to demand. so if Apple informs its supply chain partners about the upcoming promotion then in turn they can also inform Apple about how much volume and increase in demand is expected.
3. L.L. Bean was not making use of any forecasting model earlier. It was evident from their websites and products and very less changes were happening but now we can see that their products are also changing dynamically and now they are utilising forecasting to predict the customer demand. they analyse the sales data for the orders received and then they try to find out which product is more popular and will be ordered more.
4. Demand for chocolates is highly dependent on the seasons or festivals. Rest of the days its more or less constant but during festivals, the demand is at peak.
5.Its not possible that a forecasted historical demand is without any forecast error. Usually there is some % of error associated with the forecasting. it can be 100% correct in some cases but it could be applicable only for that specific data
6.
a. Wedding dresses (atleast in India where wedding happens during a specific period)
b. Chocolates & cakes
c. Umbrella
d. Filing Income-Tax return services
e. School stationary etc
7. Its not a problem until the manager is aware about the customer demand of which was there but not shown and about the offers and promotions which happened last year but not be running this year.
8. A static forecasting method means the estimates within the systematic component will not differ in case of a new demand. We utilise hostorical data here and use same values future forecasts
In case of adaptive forecasting , the estmates will keep changing as we observe new demand every time.
9. These are the different types of errors and deviation from forecasting and measure the forecast accuracy.They provide information to a manager on how to be more accurate in forecasting to to reduce errors.
10. Bias is sum of forecast errors and tells about whether the forecast is less or more than the actual observations. TS is the ratio of Bias and MAD. It has a specific range and if it is outside the range then it means the forecast is biased. A manager can utilise this info to estimate if forecast is consistently over or under-forecasted.
Related Questions
Navigate
Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.