What is Demand Forecasting?
Demand Forecasting estimates future customer demand for products using historical sales data, market trends, and statistical methods to drive production and procurement planning.
Forecasting Methods
Simple methods: Moving Average (average of last N periods), Exponential Smoothing (weighted average giving more weight to recent periods). Statistical: Regression, ARIMA. Machine Learning: Neural networks for large SKU counts with complex seasonality. Accuracy improves with more data and smaller forecast horizons.
Demand Forecasting in ERPNext
ERPNext does not have a built-in statistical forecast engine but the Production Plan supports Manual Forecasts entered as planned quantities. Sales Analytics historical data (by item, by month) can be exported for forecasting in Excel or a BI tool. The result feeds the Production Plan to drive MRP.
Infonoxe Technologies specialises in ERPNext implementation and custom software for Indian businesses.
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