Future improvements and possibilities

This project is a Work in Progress.

Integration with other projects

There are several other forecasting projects being done bt the Data Science team - Liquidation Forecast, Inventory Coverage Forecast - in parallel with this project. They use the same algorithm (tsf) as this.

The forecasting projects can all be integrated together into one comprehensive project.

Sales Forecasting gives forecast for demand and helps in planning of production and stock to be maintained in inventory.

Liquidation Forecasting

Liquidation Forecast gives forecast of secondary sales, i.e., sales from retailers to end customers, when a bottle/pack is scanned. It gives a lower bound on the confirmed sales taking place and guards against counterfeiting.

Inventory Coverage

Inventory Coverage gives forecast of amount of goods left in the inventory at a certain period of time. Combined with Sales Forecast, it can give estimation of whether the current stock is sufficient for the next month(s) of sales.

Smart Supply

There is also the project Smart Supply which tracks inventory levels and the destination of certain brands/SKUs. It contains a feature (that I made) that tells for a given location, if the inventory level of a product is insufficient, what are the locations where the inventory level of that product is sufficient.

This can be integrated with Sales Forecasting and Inventory Coverage.

Scenario Planning

There are many special events like festival, epidemic (either human or crop), war, disaster, abnormally good/bad weather, government policy changes, research breakthrough, etc.

These events will significantly affect the demand for various products. Thus, simulations can be performed to anticipate and prepare for these in the context of demand and sales.