What’s Inside

Supply chain leaders love to hate the forecast—and for good reason. For over four decades, companies have invested heavily in forecast accuracy tools, processes, and systems. Yet forecast accuracy remains a persistent source of frustration, and customer service, inventory, and cost targets continue to fall short. The problem, according to new research, is not that forecasting is broken. It is that forecasting is being used as the default demand trigger, even though better alternatives exist.

In “Love to Hate the Forecast,” Mike Burnette and Lance Saunders from the University of Tennessee’s Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) and the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative (ASCC) introduce Right-to-Left (RtL) supply chain planning—a demand-driven approach that synchronizes supply chain activity with actual consumption rather than internally-generated forecasts. The paper argues that most supply chains are built around Left-to-Right (LtR) planning, which prioritizes internal efficiency, supplier capabilities, and operational norms over actual consumer demand. RtL planning reverses that logic, starting with the consumer and working backwards through the supply chain. Contributing editors Ted Stank and Dan Pellathy bring additional depth to the research through their extensive work on supply chain integration and best practices in planning.

Central to RtL planning is the concept of demand triggers, the parameter that initiates activity in a supply chain. Rather than relying solely on a forecast, leading-edge companies segment their products and SKUs to select the demand trigger that creates the highest total value for each category. Demand triggers range from produce-to-consumption and produce-to-point-of-sale, to rate-based planning, buffer management, and forecasting—each appropriate for different product types, lead times, and demand patterns. Because company-driven variation, including pricing, promotions, and bonus systems, is frequently the largest source of demand variation, the paper also examines the organizational and cultural changes required to make RtL planning work.

Three detailed case studies illustrate how a global Fortune 500 CPG company, a regional food manufacturer, and an electronics company each applied RtL planning concepts to reduce inventory, improve customer service, and lower total delivered costs. As a result, supply chain planners and leaders walk away with both the conceptual foundation and a practical starting point for transforming their planning processes.

Download to Explore

• Why forecast accuracy improvements alone cannot solve customer service and inventory problems
• The difference between Left-to-Right (LtR) and Right-to-Left (RtL) supply chain planning — and why it matters
• How to identify and segment the best demand trigger for your highest-value SKUs
• Three case studies—CPG, food manufacturing, and electronics—showing RtL planning in action
• Key Performance Indicators for measuring RtL planning success
• A leadership to-do list for getting started with demand-driven supply chain planning

Who This White Paper Is For

This white paper is designed for:

• Supply Chain Planning Leaders and S&OP Executives
• Chief Supply Chain Officers and Operations Leaders
• Supply Chain Planners and Demand Management Teams
• Supply Chain Professionals and Advanced Students
• Business Leaders Responsible for Inventory and Customer Service Performance

For more in‑depth, industry‑focused white papers from the Global Supply Chain Institute (GSCI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, visit our white papers library. Recent research produced by the Advanced Supply Chain Collaborative (ASCC) engages industry leaders and UT faculty to explore and report on leading‑edge practices in supply chain management, planning, and innovation.