One of our long time colleagues recently read Flowcasting and asked us a very good question: “Given that many retailers are moving supply offshore, can Flowcasting help minimize the impact of longer lead times?”

In short, yes. Flowcasting provides a valid schedule for all product flows for an entire year into the future. This schedule allows suppliers to provide the lowest possible lead time from order to receipt. Why? Because the schedule eliminates any forecasting guesswork and can be used as “future customer orders” in their planning process.

In an early implementation where Flowcasting schedules were shared between a hard goods retailer and their suppliers, most supplier to DC lead times were reduced, on average, by about 70%.

Imagine if your offshore lead times were days, rather than weeks or months?