Abstract :
This is the section we mentioned in our Introduction. Our Associate Editor, Mel Appelbaum provides us with the following pertinent to the Sales Planning and Analysis System. Until recently, so-called management information systems contained little more than cost data and sales data. There was no information. The information resulted only from analysis of the data and the subsequent analysis of the information led to long-range planning. Most of the time, however, these analyses were performed on an ad hoc basis. Ms. Yorke has systematized sales analysis and planning making it much easier for planning engineers, sales engineers, and managers to function within their respective areas. The system described is a tracking system. That is, it not only records what is happening to the numbers, it also permits recording of reasons why the dips or rises occurred. In other words, when a dip takes place and the organization determines why (such as a strike), the reason can be fed into the computer and retained there to explain that dip six months later (or more) when everyone has forgotten what happened. The system tracks actual sales versus forecast versus the target. It produces an "exception" report if the deviation between forecast and actual is statistically significant. It further accumulates the exceptions to produce cumulative exception statistics. Its major usefulness to the user is to enable him to reforecast his sales or other projection in view of the cumulative exceptions that imply a shift of trend. It can be adapted to track product liability claims, process changes, and many other alphanumeric combinations.
