What is Lumpy demand?

What is Lumpy demand?

Lumpy demand is a phenomenon encountered in manufacturing or retailing when the items are slow-moving or too expensive, for example fighter plane engines. So far, the seminal procedure of Croston’s (1972.

What is erratic demand?

A pattern of demand for a product that is varied and unpredictable – e.g., the demand for large automobiles.

How do you smooth demand?

There are two ways of smoothing demand: capacity management and demand management. The aim is to drive up the demand during slow moving periods and to dampen the demand during the peak season. In the slow period, demand can be driven up using quantity discounts and other offers.

Why is it an issue with Lumpy demand?

The demand tends to be lumpy in case of dependent demand items as the planning horizon is shorter. This causes the economic lot sizes to be shorter as they are difficult to identify. It requires continuous calculation and updating the lot sizes which is a cumbersome task.

What causes erratic demand?

What Causes Erratic Demand? Obvious, but important to share… The more an item sells, the more likely it is to sell in a stable pattern. Conversely, a slow-moving item is bought by few customers, and likely the pattern will be erratic.

What to look for in intermittent demand forecasting?

When evaluating software for intermittent demand forecasting, here are three things you should look for: The forecasting method should accurately forecast the entire distribution of lead time demand values (i.e., total demand over a lead time), rather than produce just a single number representing the average demand per period.

How are intermittent demand data different from regular data?

However, intermittent demand data don’t exhibit such regular patterns and tend to be characterized by a preponderance of zero values. The older, traditional technologies ignore the special role of zero values when analyzing demand and tend to simply “smooth over” the zero and occasional non-zero values found in intermittent data.

Is there a rule of thumb for forecasting demand?

Rule of thumb approaches ignore variability in demand and lead time. They also do not update for changes in demand patterns and don’t provide critical trade-off information about the relationship between service levels and inventory costs.

What kind of industries are affected by intermittent demand?

Intermittent demand —also known as irregular, sporadic, lumpy, or slow-moving demand — affects industries of all types and sizes: capital goods and equipment sectors, automotive, aviation, public transit, industrial tools, specialty chemicals, utilities and high tech, to name just a few.