Integrating Demand Forecasting With Replenishment In A High-Tech Retail Chain

INTEGRATING DEMAND FORECASTING WITH REPLENISHMENT IN A HIGH-TECH RETAIL CHAIN By Cleopatra Bardaki, Katerina Pramatari, and Panagiotis Miliotis Since many of the customers of the high-tech industry are willing to wait when retailers are out-ofstock, stores should keep inventory at a low level ... often shortages occur because of the poor replenishment procedure at the central warehouse ... the more volatile the sale of a product, the more diffi cult it is to forecast. D D emand forecasting and efficient replenishment policy are two important elements in managing inventory, a difficult challenge in the high-tech industry. High-tech products are characterized by short life cycles, too many SKUs, volatile demand, and quick obsolescence. As such, demand forecasts are unlikely to be accurate, resulting in product shortages and lost sales. To counter such issues, high-tech companies carry extra inventory, which is very costly. In this article, we propose an experimental approach to address demand forecasting and efficient replenishment in a high-tech retail chain. The approach consists of three steps: (1) selection and evaluation of the demand-forecasting model, (2) integration ...