ak-labz/Forecasting

Reordering 400 SKUs every Monday. You're either stocking out or sitting on dead stock.

Stockouts cost you the order, and sometimes the customer. Overstock ties up cash and burns shelf life. Both happen weekly because nobody can per-SKU forecast across hundreds of items by hand.

Recent bad guesses
Summer beverages
Reordered Memorial weekend volume. Hot weather delayed 2 weeks. Wrote off $7K.
Holiday packaging
Stocked out Dec 18. Lost $14K of orders the last 7 days of the year.
Hardware SKU #4221
$22K sitting on the shelf for 11 months. Tying up working capital.

Reorder when the shelf is empty. Or "last month's run rate."

Reactive, not proactive. Bulk orders to hit supplier MOQs that don't actually match demand. Lead times treated as a guess. Slow SKUs reordered as often as fast ones.

Current method
Empty-shelf trigger + MOQ-driven bulk orders
=AVERAGE(B2:B29) * IF(C30="holiday", 1.15, 1.0)
# Then nudge it.
Why it fails
  • No per-SKU forecast — treats all 400 SKUs the same
  • Lead time ignored — restocks arrive after stockout
  • No safety stock math — random buffer
  • No prioritization — every Monday is 4 hours of manual work

Per-SKU demand forecast × lead time + safety stock. Ranked by risk.

Forecast next 30 days per SKU. Multiply by supplier lead time. Add safety stock from demand variance. Rank reorders by stockout risk × dollar impact. Surfaces what to order this week.

Inputs (already in your stack)
Per-SKU sales history
2 years of daily sales, 400 SKUs, seasonality detected
Supplier lead times
Per-supplier, recent average, variance flagged
Upcoming promos + holidays
Pull-forward and surge demand baked in
Current inventory
On-hand counts, daily refresh from POS
Building the forecast
~5 sec
Forecasting 30-day demand for 400 SKUs…
Multiplying by supplier-specific lead times (3 to 28 days)…
Computing safety stock from per-SKU demand variance…
Ranking reorders by stockout-risk × dollar impact…
Flagging 4 slow-mover SKUs to skip this week…
Aggregating per supplier (hit MOQs without overbuying)…

Explainable rules, not black-box ML. You can read why a forecast is high or low. That means operators trust it, edit it when their gut disagrees, and the model learns from the edits.

Confidence shown. Reasoning attached. Format you already use.

Output lands in the systems your team already opens. No new dashboard to log into.

Reorder this week · 400 SKUs scored
Ranked by stockout risk × dollar impact. Generated 5:42 AM Monday.
Top 7 shown
SKUItemOn hand30d demandReorderUrgency
BV-2207
Sparkling water · 12oz · 24-pack
PNW Beverage
14168192Reorder now
PKG-0341
Holiday gift box · medium
Cascade Packaging
28240240Reorder now
HW-4221
Hex nut · M8 · 100-pack
Bridge Hardware
42048Skip this week
BV-2208
Lemon-lime soda · 12oz · 24-pack
PNW Beverage
56144144Reorder this week
PKG-0388
Standard mailer · 9×12
Cascade Packaging
1200480Skip this week
CON-1108
Drink lids · 10oz · 1000-pack
PNW Beverage
46072Reorder now
HW-5103
Mounting bracket · steel
Bridge Hardware
322824Reorder normal
Grouped by supplier (MOQ check):
PNW Beverage: 408 units
Cascade Packaging: 240 units
Bridge Hardware: 24 units
Lands in
  • Buyer's Monday inbox
  • Pre-grouped per supplier (PDF ready to send)
  • Stockout flags pinned in #ops Slack
  • NetSuite / your ERP (one-click PO creation)
Why this matters
Generic AI forecasters give you a black box and a number. This shows the confidence, names the inputs, and explains every prediction so your team trusts it enough to act.

8% monthly stockout → 1.5%. $42K working capital freed.

Before
8
% monthly stockout rate
· $22K dead stock on slow-mover SKUs
· 4 hours/week of manual reorder spreadsheet
· Stockouts during peak weeks
After
1.5
% monthly stockout rate
· $42K working capital freed
· 15 minutes of review per Monday
· Reorder lists pre-grouped by supplier
$42K freed. 5× fewer stockouts.
Refreshed every Monday morning. Sent to the reorder buyer.

Same engine forecasts anything time-varying.

Demand, churn, and inventory are three shapes. The underlying engine takes any historical series with a few signals attached and gives you a forecast with confidence and explanations.

Cash flow
Next 90 days of inflows and outflows, with confidence bands. Surfaces tight weeks 6+ weeks early.
Sales pipeline
Per-deal close probability and expected close date. Ranks the deals worth pushing this week.
Customer LTV
Predicted lifetime value per customer segment. Informs acquisition spend by channel.
Capacity / staffing
When will you hit your team's ceiling? Predicts the week to hire, by role.
Seasonal trends
Year-over-year shifts in your business. Spots the 6-week change before the quarterly review does.
Anything time-series
If you have a thing that varies over time and want to know what it'll do next, this is the engine.
Trained on your data, your signals, your seasonality. Set it once. It refreshes on the cadence the team needs.