| Summary: | Poor quality of information and forecasting create a number of problems for
manufacturing companies, such as poor planning of products and insufficient
service levels, which leads to increased inventory and stock holding or
stockouts and increased total costs.
Cussons (UK) Limited is experiencing precisely these problems. Apart from
these problems normally associated with forecasting demand for fast moving
consumer goods there is an additional problem of reconciling the Western
calendar with the Muslim calendar, and a recognition of the effects that
Muslim religious holidays, as opposed to Christian religious holidays, have
on demand. Muslim religious holidays rotate backwards with regard to the
Western calendar, but in fact they occur at known dates and therefore the
effect they have on demand for products can be taken into consideration
when attempting to forecast demand.
An additional problem that influences Cussons' sales in the market is the
seasonal pattern of demand. Due to this, there is an increase in demand for
Cussons' products during summer months. From the analysis of both data
sets it was identified that the warehouse movement data is less variable and
more reliable for business forecasting than order data.
In this thesis, these forecasting problems are examined as a case study,
focusing on these particular problems. To overcome these problems and to
improve business forecasting of Cussons' products in the Middle East
market, a forecasting strategy has been suggested which will enable
Cusson's to reduce the inventories throughout the supply chain and to
improve their customer's service. === Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan, Cussons (UK)Limited.
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