Fortune 500 Food Company Improves Forecast Accuracy by 50%

The company’s existing planning systems were inadequate for the new business model. The company launched an initiative to put a new sales and operational planning (S&OP) process in place, with a stronger emphasis on forecasting.

QlikView provided the means to access and analyze the information, and thereby better manage inventory and costs. Using QlikView, the company is able to adjust for differences between forecasted and actual inventory within one to four-week horizons – a major “pain point” within the industry.  The QlikView reporting enables the monitoring of daily demand signals and improved near–term forecasting by more than 50%. This in turn has helped to stabilize production schedules, reduce safety stock, improve service levels and decrease costs.

In addition to their powerful inventory planning application, the company also uses QlikView for:

• Inventory Projections, which enables the company to now quickly compare differences between a current and prior month’s forecast. Schedule Compliance reporting, tracking how well manufacturing plants meet commitments to produce as forecasted.
• Warehouse and Transportation Capacity, to better align logistics with forecasted sales. By capturing a snapshot of inventory in warehouses and in transit—including day, location, inbound, outbound and drop times—the company reduces transportation costs and better matches warehouse staffing levels with need. 
• Risk management scenarios, such as how would production and/or freight operations shift in event of a workforce interruption or catastrophe involving one of its plants.
• New Sales Forecasting Analysis, which reduces report generation times, standardizes reports for the company’s sales and operations meetings, and forecasts error analyses during monthly brand meetings.