The value of point of sales information in upstream supply chain forecasting: an empirical investigation

Traditionally, manufacturers use past orders (received from some downstream supply chain level) to forecast future ones, before turning such forecasts into appropriate inventory and production optimisation decisions. With recent advances in information sharing technologies, upstream (SC) companies may have access point of sales (POS) data. Such data can be used as an alternative source for forecasting. There are a few studies that investigate the benefits using versus POS SC forecasting; results mixed empirical evidence is lacking, particularly context multi-echelon SCs presence promotions. We actual three-echelon with 684 series where manufacturer aims received distribution centres (DCs) either aggregated at DCs level or historical DCs. Our show order-based methods outperform POS-based ones by 6–15%. find low values mean, variance, non-linearity entropy data, promotion negatively impact performance forecasts. findings useful determining characteristics order forecasting SCs.