Overview
AGR uses stockout bridging to create more accurate forecasts for items that experience short periods of stockout through reducing the impact of past stockouts on future demand estimations. By default, stockout bridging is disabled in AGR. You should understand how it works before deciding whether or not to enable stockout bridging.
How it works
Stockout bridging is a part of forecasting in AGR. It uses sale periods prior to stockout to forecast lost sales due to stockout. The forecasted sales are then incorporated into the sales history as bridged stockout sale. AGR will not bridge until the stockout period is over.
Examples
1) As soon as you enable stockout bridging for an item that has a past stockout, AGR will calculate the potential sales for that period and include them in the forecast calculations.
2) Enabling stockout bridging during a stockout period will not change the sales history until the item is back in stock.
Stockout bridging takes into account any changes made to the forecast or adjustments made to sales before the stockout period.
3) The user has adjusted past sales information. Stockout bridging immediately takes this change into account.
Bridging period
The Maximum Number of Days to bridge sets the cap for the bridging period. For example, the default is set to 90 days. This means that AGR will only bridge stockouts of 90 days or less. AGR will not bridge any stockout that is longer than the bridging period. A cap of 90 days is good to start with, but you may want to change it depending on your use case.
Examples
A seasonal item goes into stockout in the middle of season (5th of December until 21st of January). This affects the forecast as sales in December and January 2022-23 were lower than previous years.
With the stockout bridging period set to 60 days and stockout bridging enabled, stockout bridging adds sales in the stockout period based on the forecast and the future forecast updates.
With the same scenario above, but a stockout bridging period set to 30 days, stockout bridging will not change the forecast during and after the period of stockout.
You can adjust the Maximum Number of Days to Bridge in Settings.
Keep in mind
Here are some things you might want to consider when working with stockout bridging.
Bridged data is not saved when stockout bridging is disabled after a period of it being enabled, but will be recalculated if bridging is enabled later.
The first sale after a stockout may be unusually high. You may want to adjust it to match the historic sales levels.
Stockout bridging will not be calculated for stockouts that last longer than the maximum numbers of days to bridge.
AGR will calculate each bridged period individually for items that have repeated stockouts. The bridged data from previous stockout periods will feed into calculation of the next bridged period.
AGR uses the sales data from the First Sale Date into Forecast until the final sales period where the item was in stock to forecast bridged sales.
AGR smooths bridged sales 7 days after stockout with forecasted values for any item with stockout bridging enabled.
Enabling stockout bridging
Stockout bridging can be enabled globally in the Settings area of AGR. Use the Item Card Details to enable or disable stockout bridging for individual items.
In settings
Stockout bridging can be enabled for your entire inventory by going to
the Forecast tab
Stockout Bridging by scrolling down
You can set the stockout bridging period in Maximum Number of Days to Bridge.
In the item card
You can enable stockout bridging in one of two ways in the Item card.
The Item card details tab in the card
2. The info sidebar of the item card
