Inventory Forecasting

Inventory forecasting answers a specific question: as of two weeks from now, how many wheelchairs will actually be sitting in the warehouse, given what is already scheduled to go out and what is already expected back. It is a projection built from real commitments already on the books, not a guess about future demand.

This matters most for equipment types running close to fully booked. Without a forecast, a supplier finds out they are out of a category the moment a new request comes in and there is nothing left to send. With a forecast, the same shortage shows up days or weeks ahead of time, while there is still room to redeploy a unit from another location, expedite a return, or simply warn a referral source in advance.

A forecast is only as good as the schedule data behind it. A unit checked out with no expected return date on file cannot be projected forward accurately, which is why forecasting tends to improve the same way utilization tracking does, by making checkout and return dates a normal part of the workflow rather than an afterthought. Our post on [AI and forecasting for DME operations](/blog/ai-for-dme-operations) covers how this connects to margin and duration too.