Demand Planning Courses - Forecasting Training

Forecast Solutions provides forecasting and demand planning courses that are effective and enjoyable.  We can deliver forecasting training remotely or in person at your company's own office in UK or Europe.  In either case the demand planning courses are led by a highly experienced trainer and consultant.

The introductory forecasting course gives a broad understanding of the main approaches to forecasting methods, then goes on to give details on a few of the most common forecasting methods.  It includes forecasting for new products and promotions.  There is a follow up advanced forecasting course that goes into greater detail and covers a wider range of forecasting methods.  The 2 day demand planning course incorporates the content of the introductory course, additional forecasting methods and the basics of stock policy and safety stocks. 

All demand planning courses are supported with worked examples using Excel and delegates are left with a number of working templates for some popular methods.

Our forecasting and demand planning courses are well established and suitable across a wide range of business sectors.  Because forecasting process and methods vary in different sectors we aim to target course content as closely as possible to meet the needs of individual companies.

Our main courses:

• Introduction to Sales Forecasting (1 day / 7 hrs)

• Advanced Forecasting (1 day /7hrs)

• Demand Planning and Forecasting Workshop (2 days / 14 hrs)

 Prices 

For prices please complete a quotation request form giving the course(s) of interest and the expected number of delegates.  Alternatively, feel free to email us at training@forecastsolutions.co.uk

Before booking demand planning or forecasting training please be sure to read our terms and conditions.

A brief description of the main courses follows below or for a more detailed content please follow the links above.

Introduction to Sales Forecasting (1 day)

This introductory training starts with a description of the main approaches to demand forecasting.  Some practical methods for analysing and dealing with seasonality are described.  The course proceeds to give a working knowledge of some simple but effective forecasting techniques including curve fitting, moving averages and simple examples of exponential smoothing.  We also discuss the challenges of forecasting for new products and promotions.

Advanced Forecasting (1 day)

This forecasting course is an optional follow-up to the Introduction to Sales Forecasting Course.  It covers causal analysis in greater detail than the introductory course and introduces a number of additional time-series forecasting methods.  Forecast model selection and optimisation is discussed and worked examples are provided using Excel, including use of the Solver add-on for model optimisation in exponential smoothing models. 

If relevant for the delegates, the relatively new Data Sheet facility in Excel can be covered, together with worked examples using the forecast.ets function.  The advantages and disadvantages of this method can be explained.

Demand Planning and Forecasting Workshop (2 days)

In this course the basics of demand forecasting are covered as in the one-day introductory course described above, then some of the key areas are developed in greater detail.  Also included are forecast accuracy measurement, further forecasting methods and the approach needed for short-term forecasting as compared to medium term forecasting as needed for sales and operations planning. 

This demand planning course also dips into some aspects of supply planning.  The basics of stock policy are covered including some of the basic stock planning methods and the calculation of safety stocks for fast moving and slow moving items.