Demand Management

By Howard Roddie, Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) The close ties between FuturMaster head office in Paris and our UK headquarters in Yorkshire were strengthened recently with the arrival of the Tour de France in gods own country.  As has been discussed previously, Le Tour presented Yorkshire with unprecedented logistical and supply chain challenges.  So […]

Summer 2014 plays host to some of the very best sporting events in history and although June marked the beginning of the World Cup in Brazil, next week, in Yorkshire, home of FuturMaster UK, we will see the start of none other than the Tour de France. Whilst these summer months spell BBQ’s, sunbathing, sweepstakes […]

By Howard Roddie, Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) I don’t suppose any of us have started to plan for a devolved UK just yet.  It’s too far away and it might never happen.  But it’s a challenge we should think about as it may give us a new perspective on how we organise our current […]

By Howard Roddie, FuturMaster Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) This is about the weather.  In the UK we all love to talk about the weather, so I know some of you, at least, will still be reading.  You probably already know that I’m going to talk about the influence of weather on demand planning.  So […]

By Howard Roddie, FuturMaster Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) Not too long ago I was wandering around some ruins in Rome and I was struck by how similar the job of an archaeologist is to forecast modelling.  Reading that back, it looks like a ludicrous statement (I know I should be switching off!), but let’s […]

By Howard Roddie, FuturMaster Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) A few years ago I sat next to a very loud recruitment executive on a train.  She received a call regarding a “forecaster” for a food company.  The whole carriage soon knew how easy this person would be to find as it wasn’t “rocket science”. This […]

Consumers may be stressing about the Christmas rush this year, but it’s nothing compared to the Supply Chain team putting in the long hours to make sure your Christmas runs smoothly.  Jumps in demand, stock running out and multiple promotions are some of the few challenges every Supply Chain Professional faces each year… Forget St […]

By Gary Shaw, Senior Supply Chain Consultant Demand Planning is an art and a science.  The ‘art’ is the ability for a Demand Planner to understand the business, build relationships, share information and generally have a ‘finger on the pulse’ of the company.  The ‘science’ is the ability to generate a good, accurate forecast for […]

By Howard Roddie, Senior Supply Chain Consultant (@HowardRoddie) Water.  It’s the ultimate commodity1. We drink it.  Sometimes raw, from a tap, well or stream.  Sometimes it sparkles in fancy bottles from fashionable springs in distant countries.  Other times we walk miles to collect a murky liquid from an unreliable source. We drink it in other […]