Stockouts—when inventory levels are insufficient to meet customer demand—can lead to lost sales, diminished customer trust, and unnecessary supply chain stress. Fortunately, Minitab Statistical Software and Predictive analytics provides the tools needed to proactively identify factors contributing to stockouts and optimize inventory.
In this post, we’ll demonstrate how to use Minitab Statistical Software to analyze a dataset and identify key drivers of stockouts.
To forecast demand and prevent stockouts, start by analyzing historical data. This data provides insights into past sales patterns, customer preferences, and the impact of external factors such as promotions, holidays, or economic conditions. By reviewing trends over time, you can identify seasonality, sales spikes, and low-demand periods. These patterns are crucial for establishing a baseline of expected demand.
For example, if you see a consistent increase in sales during certain months or in response to specific marketing campaigns, you can use that information to predict future demand. Understanding these patterns helps avoid overstocking or understocking, which can lead to waste or missed sales.
In Minitab, tools like regression analysis and time series analysis can help identify significant patterns in your data, giving you a clearer picture of expected demand, as in this example:
The team at this retail company can use time series analysis to generate projections for revenue based on seasonality. In this example, the company generates a significant portion of their revenue during quarter four. Knowing these anticipated numbers can lead to more informed, data-driven planning.
Real-time data is crucial for adapting forecasts to changing market conditions. With Minitab Connect, you can stream live data into your analysis, ensuring that your forecasts stay current. This includes sales trends, supply chain updates, and production delays.
For example, if demand spikes unexpectedly due to a competitor’s stockout, live analytics in Minitab Connect enables you to quickly adjust inventory levels. By integrating multiple data sources, you can build live dashboards that continuously update, giving you a clear, real-time view of your inventory and demand forecasts. This ensures quicker, data-driven decisions to prevent stockouts and optimize inventory.
By combining insights from historical data with real-time updates, you're well-equipped to make informed inventory decisions. However, to truly prevent stockouts and optimize your inventory, it’s essential to go one step further with predictive analytics.
Predictive analytics enables you to go beyond historical data and real-time information by analyzing the relationships between various factors that influence stockouts.
We used automated machine learning in Minitab’s Predictive Analytics Module to demonstrate this. Our dataset includes potential factors that could lead to stockouts of a certain brand of Bluetooth headphones.
The team wanted to see which factor most consistently was associated with a stockout. They gathered data from the past 50 weeks for lead time in ordering, the inventory level at the beginning of the week, the reorder rate at the end of each week, for forecast for units sold, and actual units sold. Then, they used automated machine learning to determine which of these variables was most significant:
Interestingly, longer lead time was the most important predictor for stockouts.
This is a relatively straightforward problem to solve. By ordering sooner (by midweek, instead of end of week), the company could drastically reduce the likelihood of a stockout. The team could then implement those changes and measure their data again in several months and use Minitab Statistical Software to see if there was a statistically significant difference in the number of stockouts they experienced.
Preventing stockouts requires a strategic approach that combines historical analysis, real-time data, and predictive analytics. With Minitab Statistical Software and Predictive Analytics, you can identify key drivers of stockouts, adjust inventory strategies in real time, and leverage advanced modeling to make proactive decisions. By adopting these tools and techniques, your business can ensure optimal inventory levels, minimize supply chain disruptions, and maintain customer trust.