Case Article–Forecasting at FoodMart: A Case on Cultural Diversity in Supply Chain Management

Abstract

This case focuses on forecasting a number of grocery items from the perspective of a demand planner who notices that the items have irregular patterns in the seasonality of their historical sales. It introduces students to the need for diverse cultural knowledge in forecasting certain consumer products and provides instructors with a starting point for discussing the business case for diversity and the value of diverse teams in a supply chain management context. This case is recommended for use in an undergraduate-level course in supply chain management, operations management, or business analytics. Learning goals are for students to identify irregular patterns in historical sales data and determine their root causes, evaluate a statistical forecast created without human intervention, and explain how culturally diverse teams can be valuable in a forecasting process. Supplemental Material: The Teaching Note and grocery forecasting Excel spreadsheet are available at https://www.informs.org/Publications/Subscribe/Access-Restricted-Materials .