Forecasting in airforce supply chains

Purpose – The UK Chinook helicopter is a utility and attack helicopter being operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF). Its versatile nature is of enormous importance to the strategic capability of the RAF's operations. The purpose of this paper is to utilise systems‐based forecasting to conduct an evaluation of inventory and forecasting systems being used to support its maintenance programme. Design/methodology/approach – A case study is conducted. Data are collected from existing monthly Component Repair (CRP) data and performance evaluation of software. For propriety reasons, all data have been sanitised. Findings – Analysis of the current inventory and forecasting system suggests a possible lack of forecasting precision. Current non‐specific formulation of forecasting techniques implied several of the cost driver's demands were being miscalculated. This lack of precision is possibly a result of the smoothing value of 0.01 being too low, especially as the results of statistical modelling suggest that current parameter values of 0.01 might be too low. Originality/value – The paper reports on work conducted jointly between Boeing and the University of Southampton that sought to create an intermittent demand forecasting model.