To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season…  

When I started out in planning and forecasting, there were no integrated systems.  We built production schedules for the next week or two based on recent sales and open orders.  We knew there were certain products that sold well at certain times of the year (ice cream cones in summer, saltines in the winter).  We built inventory for these products based on last year’s sales and this years’ projections.  And we did it all in spreadsheets.  As we moved to more sophisticated systems, users had less flexibility to quickly adapt to changing requirements.  Now the pendulum is swinging back to user flexibility. Continue reading →