Creation of Annual Order Forecast for the Production of Beverage Cans—The Case Study

This article is focused on the creation of a system for forecasting of future orders for a specific beverage cans manufacturer. The problem comes from the irregular ordering of cans from different customers; not only national companies, but also from companies abroad. This causes fluctuations in production and consequently an irregular transport regime. That is why the beverage can producer demanded a forecasting system that would help to create an annual production plan. The aim is to analyze the ordering process for the last two years and on that basis to create a forecast system of the possible ordering process for the following year. This is necessary for the introduction of regularity of production, because the frequent transitions of the line to another assortment range or other surface printing requires long downtimes due to the technological setting, thus creating large losses due to inactivity of the production line. As drinking habits of final customers reflect the sale of cans, it was expected that sale data would have a seasonable character; this was proved after a brief analysis of the former data. After that, the appropriate forecasting methods were chosen. The methodology was created to combine multiple forecast results into one to increase the forecast objectivity. Forecasting is performed at three different levels: forecasting of assortment, forecasting of region sale and total forecasting of all orders. In spite of the change in market behavior in 2020, due to the pandemic situation in the first wave of the COVID-19 crisis, the sale of beverage cans is expected to stabilize and return to pre-crisis level as early as 2021. Then the forecasting system will fully meet the company’s requirements.