Frequently, people looking at Demand Planning software will express a need to “lock” some customers’ forecasts while leaving others unlocked. Generally, what is really desired is a mechanism for indicating that some forecasts are more credible than others. Indeed, different levels of uncertainty between forecast streams have to be handled, but simple locking is not a good solution.
Let us first look at the problems introduced by attempting to “lock” a forecast, and then look at alternative means for addressing the different levels of uncertainty.