You can use Crisp dashboards to project demand for your products, so you can determine how much raw materials to purchase and plan your production schedule. The following example shows you how to project sales for a cookie product for the month of July.
Note: Before you begin, you must have set up source connections to get your data into Crisp. For more: Getting Your Data Into Crisp.
Steps:
- From the main menu at the top-right of the screen, select Analytics.
- From the dashboard menu at the top left of the screen, select the sales dashboard for the retailer you want to analyze. In this example, we'll look at the KeHE Sales dashboard.
- Select the Sales Standard Period Starts At Date filter, then specify the time frame you want to analyze. For this example, we'll look at data from the last two years.
- Select the Product Description filter, then select the product for which you want to plan demand (e.g., Cookies Sugar) and click the refresh button.
- Use the Sales Quantity Over Time visualization to find your sales from last July to get the baseline number for your sales projection. Hover over or click on a point on the graph to get the Sales Quantity number. In this case, you sold 22,019 units.
- Calculate how much your sales have increased from last year. For example, hover over points on the graph to get your sales quantity for the current month (January) and the same month last year.
Then, you can calculate the increase using the following calculation method:
In this case, the math works out as follows, and you can see want to plan for a 19% increase:
Note: This example only projects regular sales inventory. If you don't already have safety stock, you may want to increase your projection for a month or two to build up safety stock.
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Finalize your projected demand calculation using the following method:
In this case, the math works out like this:
Now, you know you need to produce around 26, 203 units to meet projected demand for July. You can use this information to plan purchasing of raw materials and create a production schedule. Once your production team has manufactured the inventory, you can start planning your inventory allocation strategy.