Dairy Forecasting for Convenience Stores: A Case Study Approach

Abstract

A large assortment of industrial engineering tools have been developed to help businesses and organizations in their continuous effort to improve. However, whether by design or by chance these tools are primarily targeted on helping larger scale businesses. A majority of the businesses that currently operate in the United States are classified as small businesses. Many of these industrial engineering tools require a significant amount of resources or seem to only function in operations larger than those seen at a small business size. The question of whether these tools seen in larger scale companies can be used on small business level operation is at the heart of this study. This study analyzes dairy inventory at a local convenience store and looks at applying industrial engineering tools. Several tools are assessed but only a selected few forecasting methods are applied during the study. Whether or not large scale inventory forecasting methods still create value in small scale businesses is what is evaluated.