Inventory forecasting for Aerospace
While the core focus of Lokad’s activity has been on commerce since the very beginning, over the years, we have also delivered forecasts and optimized stock levels for a variety of other verticals. Some verticals prove to be more challenging than others as far forecasting is concerned, and the aerospace industry with its low rotations, its highly expensive parts and its costly stock-out incidents - i.e. grounded aircrafts waiting for a missing part - is certainly one of the most challenging verticals in terms of forecasting. In particular, classic inventory forecasting models tend to work very poorly for aerospace, primarily because the underlying assumptions behind these classic models (normal distributions, Poisson distributions, weekly or monthly forecasts) completely misfit the actual statistical patterns observed in aerospace.
Over the last 6 months, we have re-engineered a brand new forecasting engine purely dedicated to aerospace. At its core, this forecasting engine also leverages quantile forecasts, because this type of forecasting is about the only class of statistical models that actually works for aerospace. However, unlike our initial forecasting engine targeted at commerce, this variant natively integrates the logistics associated with high-cost repairable parts where components are first changed and then repaired. In particular, the TAT (turn-around times) are also modeled through quantile forecasts. In addition, among other industry-specific factors, fleet composition over time, including known future evolutions, is also natively integrated into the forecasting engine.
Considering the complex structure of the aerospace market, Lokad does not offer a packaged inventory forecasting solution readily accessible online as we do for commerce. However, if you are interested in forecasting for aerospace, don’t hesitate to drop us an email anytime at contact@lokad.com.