Event based Demand Planning:hollister’s Journey

EVENT BASED DEMAND PLANNING: HOLLISTER’S JOURNEY By Robert J. Kopp Describes the Hollister’s forecasting process … separate forecasts are prepared for baseline and event-based products ... senior management is most interested in forecasts of products that are impacted by events. Doesn’t everyone (every company, every forecaster, every planner, and every forecast user) want: (1) a more accurate forecast, (2) to reduce the bias in a forecast, and (3) to communicate the significant happenings in the forecast to all of the end-users? Hollister Incorporated is no different. The goal is to forecast accurately with little or no bias, and communicate the performance of the new or major activities to all end users of the forecast. Hollister Incorporated is a global healthcare device manufacturer located in Libertyville, Illinois. Even though it is employee-owned, there is still great interest in achieving these goals — maybe even more so than in publicly held companies. FORECASTING PROCESS This article presents a new approach to accomplish all three of these forecast objectives. It involves a simple strategy, the separation of baseline products from all the others. Another facet ...