demanddriven

Demanddriven is a term used to describe approaches, processes, and systems that orient operations around actual customer demand signals rather than forecasted projections. In practice, demanddriven strategies rely on real-time or near real-time data such as customer orders, point-of-sale data, and consumption trends to trigger production, replenishment, and capacity decisions. The concept is widely applied in supply chain management and manufacturing, contrasting with traditional forecast-driven, push-based planning models.

In supply chain practice, demanddriven planning is often associated with frameworks like Demand-Driven MRP (DDMRP). DDMRP provides a method to decouple supply from demand through strategic inventory positioning, buffer management, and dynamic lead times. By creating decoupling points and applying demand-driven logic to buffer sizing and replenishment, organizations aim to dampen the bullwhip effect, reduce excess inventory, and improve service levels while remaining responsive to shifts in demand.

Beyond manufacturing, demanddriven thinking is used in marketing, product development, and service delivery to shorten cycle times and align offerings with what customers are actually buying. It often requires increased data visibility across the supply chain, cross-functional collaboration, and the integration of analytics or automation tools to sense demand signals promptly and translate them into actionable plans.

Advantages of demanddriven approaches include improved customer service, lower finished-goods and working-in-progress inventories, and greater agility in responding to demand swings. Potential challenges involve ensuring data quality and timeliness, achieving organization-wide buy-in, changing established planning cultures, and investing in systems that can capture and act on real-time demand signals across multiple partners.

Related terms include pull-based production, just-in-time, and demand sensing.