How do I read the Forecast history table?

This article aims to describe the table found in the Forecast history tab of an item Inquiry screen. The image shown below points to the graph shown on the Forecast history tab, and found on the top right corner is the Forecast history table button.

Let’s have a look at the table view.

Turn your attention to the July 2021 column, highlighted in red. The forecast attempt from August 2020 for July 2021 was 756. As the actual sales figures for each month was recorded, the forecast was recalculated. In September 2020, the July 2021 forecast was 685, in October 2020 it was 755, in November 2020 it was 991, etc.

The highlighted section from May 2021 to July 2021 represents the periods that would have impacted the most recent order recommended by the App. This is called the cover forward period.

The Cover fwd (the bottom row, also referred to as the Order up to) period is equal to the lead time, safety stock and replenishment cycle period. In this case for July 2021, it is 3 periods (LT 45 + SS 19 + RC 21 = 85 days). This information is found in the Policy panel of the item Inquiry screen.

The average forecast over the cover forward period is used to generate the Forecast row. The Forecast of 790 for July 2021 is then compared to the actual Sales figure of 618, resulting in the Variance of 172.

This variance is then used to calculate the forecast risk, which is then used in the safety stock days calculation. A positive variance indicates over forecasting, a negative variance indicates under forecasting.

The red snowflake next to the August 2021 forecast (highlighted in red on the table) indicates that the forecast was manually changed. This indication of a manual forecast change is also shown on the Forecast tab in an item Inquiry screen as per below. In this case, we see a red snowflake next to the August 2021 forecast (highlighted in red on the below table). We see that it is not only the August 2021 forecast that received the manual adjustment, but September 2021 until April 2022 has been manually adjusted as well.

On average this item has been over-forecasted, resulting in a forecast risk of 16.8% with an offset of -4 days. A negative offset indicates that the safety stock days will be reduced to compensate for the over-forecasting.

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