Development of Forecasting at Franke Finland Oy

Abstract

Detailed planning is essential for managers that they can achieve good operations performance. An accurate forecast is a key input for these different plans, for example inventory and resource planning. Also it is very important that company’s different functions do not have individual plans, but one common plan in order to achieve company’s financial goals and meet customers’ needs.

The aim of this thesis was development of the forecasting process at Franke Finland. Franke Finland provides kitchen system products for households, and washroom and sanitary system products for the public and semi-public sectors. Current forecasting was on common level and based on only Euros and therefore did not give enough information for the managers to make their decisions.

The first part of the thesis was to compare different forecasting methods and find out the best one with best accuracy for Franke Finland. The chosen method was implemented to the product level. The other goal was to find out a process to communicate the results of the forecast and to improve the co-operation of different functions better than before.

Development of forecasting system processes and management of logistics were the writer’s daily work. His Master of Engineering studies gave extra long term inputs to study and improve these processes for the company.

As a result of the thesis a new improved forecasting system has been implemented into company, and in order to achieve strategic fit sales and operations planning (S&OP) process has been also taken place in the company. These solutions have been evaluated successfully and they provide a good base to develop the organization in the future.