Phase-out product demand forecasting

Abstract

A system and method for generating or adjusting a demand forecast for a phased-out product is described. A demand forecast may be generated based on the historical data for the phased-out product and trends found in similar products that have been phased-out.

1 . A machine readable medium having instructions stored therein which when executed cause a machine to perform a set of operations comprising:
 retrieving data about a phased-out product from a storage system;   retrieving a group phase-out profile associated with the phased-out product the group phase-out profile generated by sorting a plurality of phased-out products into groups and aggregating a phase-out profile for each group member; and   forecasting demand for the phased-out product based on the group phase-out profile and retrieved data.   
     
     
         2 . The machine readable medium of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 determining a group for the phased-out product.   
     
     
         3 . The machine readable medium of  claim 2 , further comprising:
 forecasting demand for the group.   
     
     
         4 . The machine readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein retrieving data comprises:
 retrieving a standard deviation value for the phased-out product.   
     
     
         5 . The machine readable medium of  claim 3 , further comprising:
 calculating a demand forecast range for a time period using the standard deviation value.   
     
     
         6 . The machine readable medium of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 generating a phase-out profile associated with the phased-out product.   
     
     
         7 . A system comprising:
 a storage system to store product data and a group phase-out profile for a phased-out product the group phase-out profile generated by sorting a plurality of phased-out products into groups and aggregating a phase-out profile for each group member;   a forecast module to communicate with the persistent storage system, the forecast module to retrieve the group phase-out profile from the persistent storage system and to generate a demand forecast for a phased-out product based on the phase-out group profile.   
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 a profile generation module to communicate with the storage system, the profile generation module to generate a phase-out profile based on the demand history for the phased-out product.   
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the profile generation module generates the phase-out profile if a minimum number of data requirements are met. 
     
     
         10 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the profile generation module generates the group phase-out profile for devices with similar traits. 
     
     
         11 . The system of  claim 8 , wherein the profile generation module generates a standard deviation for the phase-out profile. 
     
     
         12 . The system of  claim 7 , further comprising:
 a communication device to enable access to the demand forecast from a remote location.   
     
     
         13 . The system of  claim 7 , wherein the forecast module is located on a central server, further comprising:
 a local machine to execute an interface to access the forecast module over a network.   
     
     
         14 . A method comprising:
 generating a group phase-out profile for a phased-out product by aggregating a phase-out profile for the phased-out product with other phase-out profiles from an assigned group; and   generating a demand forecast for the product associated with the group phase-out profile.   
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising:
 gathering data about the phased-out product after the generating of the demand forecast; and   adjusting the demand forecast based on the data gathered after the generation of the forecast.   
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein generating a demand forecast for the product associated with the phase-out profile further comprises:
 retrieving parameters and historical data associated with the product;   applying the values of the phase-out profile to the historical data associated with the product.   
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 14 , further comprising:
 filtering the plurality of phased-out products prior to the sorting.   
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the filtering removes any one of ungrouped phased-out products, phased-out products without a production end date, phased-out products with a production end date in the future.