Forecasting “Stock Out” Date

Abstract

The paper discusses methods of estimating the stock-out date of products which are made in campaigns at intervals of time. Such estimates are usually made at the beginning of each planning period (usually monthly) and when estimating the same stock-out date from one period to the next by the usual method, one often experiences an embarrassing variation which results in the suppliers having little confidence in forward estimates. The reason for this occurrence when the demand is highly fluctuating is indicated, and a method of reducing this effect is suggested.

^†Department of Statistics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

^†Department of Statistics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth.