PHASE-OUT PRODUCT DEMAND FORECASTING

• US 20100094675A1
• Filed: 12/14/2009
• Published: 04/15/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 06/29/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Li, Sheng, Heimburger, Ralf, Schierholt, Karsten
• Application Number:
  US12/637,593
• Publication Number:
  US 20100094675A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7.31
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/087 Inventory or stock management, e.g. order filling, procurement or balancing against orders
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0202 Market predictions or forecasting for commercial activities

Abstract

A system and method for generating or adjusting a demand forecast for a phased-out product is described. A demand forecast may be generated based on the historical data for the phased-out product and trends found in similar products that have been phased-out.

Claims

1. A machine readable medium having instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations comprising:

retrieving data about a phased-out product from a storage system;

retrieving a group phase-out profile associated with the phased-out product the group phase-out profile generated by sorting a plurality of phased-out products into groups and aggregating a phase-out profile for each group member; and

forecasting demand for the phased-out product based on the group phase-out profile and retrieved data.

2. The machine readable medium of claim 1, further comprising:

determining a group for the phased-out product.

3. The machine readable medium of claim 2, further comprising:

forecasting demand for the group.

4. The machine readable medium of claim 1, wherein retrieving data comprises:

retrieving a standard deviation value for the phased-out product.

5. The machine readable medium of claim 3, further comprising:

calculating a demand forecast range for a time period using the standard deviation value.

6. The machine readable medium of claim 1, further comprising:

generating a phase-out profile associated with the phased-out product.

7. A system comprising:

a storage system to store product data and a group phase-out profile for a phased-out product the group phase-out profile generated by sorting a plurality of phased-out products into groups and aggregating a phase-out profile for each group member;

a forecast module to communicate with the persistent storage system, the forecast module to retrieve the group phase-out profile from the persistent storage system and to generate a demand forecast for a phased-out product based on the phase-out group profile.

8. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a profile generation module to communicate with the storage system, the profile generation module to generate a phase-out profile based on the demand history for the phased-out product.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the profile generation module generates the phase-out profile if a minimum number of data requirements are met.

10. The system of claim 8, wherein the profile generation module generates the group phase-out profile for devices with similar traits.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the profile generation module generates a standard deviation for the phase-out profile.

12. The system of claim 7, further comprising:

a communication device to enable access to the demand forecast from a remote location.

13. The system of claim 7, wherein the forecast module is located on a central server, further comprising:

a local machine to execute an interface to access the forecast module over a network.

14. A method comprising:

generating a group phase-out profile for a phased-out product by aggregating a phase-out profile for the phased-out product with other phase-out profiles from an assigned group; and

generating a demand forecast for the product associated with the group phase-out profile.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

gathering data about the phased-out product after the generating of the demand forecast; and

adjusting the demand forecast based on the data gathered after the generation of the forecast.

16. The method of claim 14, wherein generating a demand forecast for the product associated with the phase-out profile further comprises:

retrieving parameters and historical data associated with the product;

applying the values of the phase-out profile to the historical data associated with the product.

17. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

filtering the plurality of phased-out products prior to the sorting.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the filtering removes any one of ungrouped phased-out products, phased-out products without a production end date, phased-out products with a production end date in the future.