In today's International Herald Tribune, I learned that Tesco, British Grocer, Uses Weather to Predict Sales
[The classic variability of British weather] randomness has prompted Tesco, the country’s largest grocery chain, to create its own weather team in hopes of better forecasting temperatures and how consumer demand changes with them.
My first reading of this article was that it sounds like a good idea. But then one of my Theory of Constraints colleagues reminded me of the danger of forecasts: they are always wrong.
Instead, it might be a better idea to design the supply chain to be flexible and fast to respond to actual changes in consumer demand.