Customer demand planning

Customer demand planning is like playing a guessing game. You know that people want to buy something, but you have to figure out how many of those things you should make or order so that you won't have too much or too little.

Let's pretend that you have a lemonade stand. You know that people like to drink lemonade when it's hot outside. You want to make sure you have enough lemonade for everyone to drink, but you also don't want to make too much and then waste it.

Here's how you would plan for customer demand:

1. You would look at the weather forecast to see if it's going to be hot or not.

2. You would remember how much lemonade you sold on a similar day in the past.

3. You would think about how many people might walk by your stand and want a drink.

Using all of this information, you would make a plan for how much lemonade you should make. If it's going to be a really hot day, you might make more lemonade than you did on a cooler day. If you sold a lot of lemonade last time, you might want to make a little bit extra just in case.

This is customer demand planning! It's figuring out how much of a product you need to have available to sell based on what you think people will want to buy. It can be tricky, but it's a really important part of running a business.