The Cloud-Based Demand-Driven Supply Chain

CHAPTER 5Case Studies of Demand-Driven Forecasting in AWS

The focus of this chapter is on two real‐world case studies of two organizations requiring an advanced demand‐driven supply chain solution (i.e., forecasting, collaborative demand planning, and inventory optimization) that would run in the cloud. Some details are deliberately vague or excluded to protect the organizations involved. Other information such as architecture designs or performance examples are generally mentioned, but should not be seen as representative practices or results, as each organization will have different needs, budgets, and time. Nevertheless, there are several principles that can be adopted as best practices by other organizations.

CASE STUDY 1: NEWS AND MEDIA COMPANY

This first case focuses on a news and media company. The enterprise produces printed news content such as newspapers, magazines, and newspaper supplements (e.g., special small brochures or leaflets). It has many retail outlets that it ships its products to. Product surplus is expensive (i.e., production, distribution), as is having too much stock at the wrong location and not enough stock at another location (leading to lost sales). The primary business challenge for this organization was to enhance its forecasting process. There was a need for improvement in forecast accuracy across three dimensions (product, outlet, and location) and within the hierarchy of each dimension.

Forecast results needed to be available much faster than ...