Análise e previsão de demanda de peças de maquinário agrícola

Abstract

The demand forecasting is a very important tool in a globalized and competitive market that the companies face nowadays. The stock area of agricultural machinery parts has an important role for the companies, because it represents a meaningful portion of the financial capital that is invested in this area and it is also a differential for the company about customer experience. This paper shows the main qualitative and quantitative methods of demand forecasting and their advantages. It was analyzed historical data of agricultural machinery sales from a company located in São Miguel do Iguaçu – Paraná. The data were organized in four groups according to each activity that compound the regional agriculture. The analysis of these data made possible to know the main agricultural activities of the region, responsible for the use of the machineries that consume these parts, identify the main factors that are related to these activities and point the better quantitative and qualitative method to demand forecasting for such an activity, in this case the Holt-Winterss method. At a later time it was forecasted the demand and identified the smoothing parameters for each part subgroup. It was verified that the Holt-Winterss method was satisfying and could be used as a tool to demand forecasting, bringing, this way some financial and image advantages for the company.