title: Flexible forecasts: a key to better customer service.
abstract: Good customer service requires companies to keep their fingers on their customers' pulse and develop intelligent forecasts with their needs built in. As even the smallest factories today are placing at least some emphasis on lead time reductions to improve flexibility and the speed of response to customer requirements, the role of the forecast, now more than ever, is to provide at all times the best, most recent, and most accurate picture of what exactly will be required and when.
authors.affiliation: E.M. Wiegmann & Co., Inc. Division of Hubbell, Freeburg, IL, USA.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Neuhaus
mesh_terms: D003258:Consumer Behavior; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D007221:Industry / Q000639:trends*; D008421:Materials Management, Hospital; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D011357:Product Line Management; D017748:Time Management; D014481:United States