Here is a compilation of popular acronyms and abbreviations in demand forecasting and supply chain management.
  • ABF – Account Based Forecasting, also known as Customer Planning or Customer Specific Forecasting (CSF), refers to a bottom up demand forecasting process which starts with a customer retail forecast, then arrives at a customer shipment forecast to be aggregated into a supply chain forecast.
  • ACV -All Commodity Volume
  • APICS – The Association for Operations Management offers certification in supply chain management and resource management. The two different certifications are titled CPIM and CIRM.
  • APO – Advanced Planner and Optimizer, the planning software from SAP AG.
  • ATO – Assembled to Order
  • ATP – Available to Promise
  • BOM – Bill of Materials
  • CBP – Consensus Business Planning
  • CIRM- Certified in Integrated Resources Management-CIRM is a comprehensive educational program designed to help you understand the power of collaboration among organizational resources such as product development, marketing/sales, human resources, finance, and operations.
  • CPFR – Collaborative, Planning, Forecasting, and Replenishment is a concept popularized and institutionalized by the VICS organization to enable manufacturers and retailers to better collaborate on forecasting and promotional planning to achieve supply chain efficiencies.
  • CPG – Consumer Packaged Goods, refers to the manufacturers and supplies in the Packaged Goods industry, a very specific reference to companies that manufacture or distribute Consumer Packaged Goods to the retail environment.
  • CFPIM-Certified Fellow in Production and Inventory Management
  • CPIM – Certified in Production and Inventory Management, a certification offered by the APICS, the Association for Operations Management.
  • CRM – Customer Relationship Management; the process and discipline to analyze the trade funds, promotional planning and execution, and evaluating the effectiveness of promotions. Oracle CRM, Siebel, and SAP CRM are the dominant players in this space. Siebel and Demantra have been acquired by Oracle.
  • CRP – Continuous Replenishment Program, another term to denote VMI or Vendor Managed Inventories, where the supplier or manufacturer monitors the inventory at the customer warehouse on a continuous basis and writes the orders on behalf of the customer to ensure warehouses are adequately stocked.
  • CSCP – Certified Supply-Chain Professional
  • CTO – Configured to Order
  • DC – Distribution Center
  • DP – Demand Planning, a functional and subject reference to the forecasting group and role
  • DDSN -Demand Driven Supply Networks
  • DRP – Distribution Requirements Planning
  • DTC – Direct To Channel
  • EDI – Electronic Data Interchange
  • EOQ – Economic Order Quantity
  • ETO – Engineered to Order
  • FAN – Flu Alert Network
  • FG – Finished Goods
  • FMCG – Fast Moving Consumer Goods
  • FSI – Free Standing Insert, AKA “Coupon”
  • IBM – Integrated Business Planning
  • IBP – Integrated Business Planning
  • IO – Inventory Optimization
  • JIT – Just In Time
  • KPI – Key Performance Indicator
  • LTL – Less than Truck Load
  • MAPE – Mean Absolute Percent Error a cross-sectional measure to calculate the demand forecast error across products, customers, divisions, etc.
  • MAD – Mean Absolute Deviation, similar to MAPE before it becomes a percentage error. Academics respect this measure, largely due to confusion and misinterpretations around the MAPE.
  • MRP – Materials Requirements Planning
  • MTD – Month to date
  • MTG – Month to Go
  • MTO – Made to Order, a type of production and inventory strategy that starts the manufacturing process only on receipt of the customer order. The manufacturer has the luxury of making the customer order, (and perhaps pay) and wait. Dell is a classic example of an MTO business model.
  • MTS – Made to Stock, a production and replenishment model that keeps inventory of products, anticipating customer orders.
  • OFS – Oil Field Services
  • OLS – Ordinary Least Squares, the most basic methodology for model fitting by choosing the model that minimizes the residual error.
  • OTC – Over The Counter
  • PMAD – Percent Mean Absolut
  • POS – Point of Sale
  • POP – Point of Purchase
  • RMSE – Root Mean Squared Error, a measure of model diagnostic and with more application in inventory management to set parameters for safety stock calculations.
  • SCOR – Supply Chain Operations Reference Model
  • S&OP -Sales and Operations Planning
  • SIOP -Sales, Inventory, and Operations Planning
  • SKU – Stock Keeping Unit
  • SNP -Supply Network Planning
  • SMI -Supplier Managed Inventory, very similar to VMI except here the manufacturer lets their inventories be managed by a supplier of key components and input products.
  • VMI -Vendor Managed Inventories, where the supplier or manufacturer monitors the inventory at the customer warehouse on a continuous basis and writes the orders on behalf of the customer to ensure warehouses are adequately stocked.
  • WIP – Work in Process
  • WAPE – Weighted Absolute Percent Error – The same as weighted MAPE