Predictive Demand Supply
Lonnie Childs - December 23, 2004

Introduction

If you're in the supply chain business, right up there with Newton's law of gravity stands Murphy's other law stipulating that demand and supply, if left to their own tendencies, will always tend to diverge and get you in trouble. In the case of gravity, we have all hopefully learned to predict what it personally means to us (jump out of a tree and down you go!), and so we readily know how to avoid its negative effects (don’t jump!). With demand and supply (D/S) imbalances, while we all recognize the symptoms (backorders, extended lead times, irate customers, etc.), Murphy, unlike Newton, never seems to give us advance warning or enlighten us on how to avoid falling into their trap...