Development of a customized forecast model in Oracle R12.1.3

Forecasting is the process of making statements about events whose actual outcomes (typically) have not yet been observed. Prediction is a similar, but more general term. Financial and Operations management must deal with the impact of an optimistic forecast. Cash is often tied up in slow moving inventory as well as the opportunity costs associated with the production time for items that don't sell. Conversely, a pessimistic forecast causes Marketing and Sales to have shortfalls in revenue due to limited product availability. Considerable literature has accumulated over the years regarding forecasting. The primary conclusion of this line of research is that forecast accuracy can be substantially improved through customization of forecast forms in Oracle R12.1.3 for the betterment of supply chain and manufacturing units. This paper aims in developing a separate form for updating sales forecast for multiple routes, locations, regions. Its objective is to provide multi-level status and versioning of the forecast to rule over standard functionality of Oracle eBS which was based on assumptions that resulted in a cumbersome data entry, higher inventories, poor customer delivery performance, longer customer order lead times, and increased overhead costs due to excessive changes to production plans. To obtain the highest quality forecast, now a more customized form is developed using Oracle Forms in Oracle R12.1.3 which has obtained unbiased tracking signals leading to more accuracy of the model.