Forecasting is the act of predicting or estimating a customer’s needs over a period of time. Accurate forecasting is important to determining the appropriate scheduling of materials, machines and people to ensure products are delivered to the customer when needed. In other words—the better the forecasting, the lower the lead time.

As the team at A.Y. McDonald works to increase capacity and reduce lead times for customers, accurate forecasting is key. In today's world, forecasting has never been as important as it is now. With proper forecasting from our customers, we can ensure our capacity and deliver products quickly when needs arise. Without proper tracking, a customer can end up without an order when they truly need it.

So, how does the forecasting process work?

  1. At A.Y. McDonald, we start off by forecasting the raw materials we need based on a customer’s previous orders.
  2. Those forecasts then go to the purchasing department who places the order with a third party provider of raw materials.
  3. Once the materials come in, we then send the forecast to production, who waits for the customer’s official order to be placed. If we do not have an accurate forecast then the process doesn’t function properly.

At A.Y. McDonald, we are positioned to meet the increased demand but we need our customer’s help in forecasting the products and quantities that they need. We encourage customers to take advantage of this process because, with three different manufacturing plants, we have the ability and manpower to produce the parts they need as quickly as possible. Contact us for more information on forecasting and the products we offer or take the 'Forecasting for Natural Gas Products' AYU course.