Demand is an economic principle that describes a consumer's desire or willingness for a specific good or service. Holding all other factors constant, an increase in the price of a good or service will decrease demand, and vice versa.  Demand can also be defined as a quantity of a commodity or service which is either wanted or needed.

A standard that is set to monitor sales data for specific items in forecasting models. The standard is usually set to be tripped or triggered when the demand for a period is different from the forecast by more than some number of mean absolute deviations.

  Data cleansing, data washing or data scrubbing as it is often referred to, is a process of correcting and eliminating inaccurate (defects) records from a particular network, server, database or data warehouse. The purpose of data cleansing is to find errors or wasteful pieces of irrelevant information and delete or correct them. This ensures that data being used is accurate according to what is needed.  Data cleansing is a powerful way to improve information and can be performed by following the 5S System.

Reference: Infyzoom.com - Data Cleansing

  A Defect is any output from a service or a product that does not meet the customer required specifications, standards or requirements.  A defect is not the same as defective.  There may be more than one defect in a defective product or process.  A Defect is also one of the 8 forms of waste or muda. 

What defects have you experienced and how did you correct them?  Share in the comment section below.

  Digitization is the adoption of digital, real-time and networked products and services and related information. In real terms, digitization is about choice, efficiency, and responding to customer needs. All of this digitization requires the skills of operations managers to implement and oversee. 

Reference - Kettering University, 01/12/2017, Operations Management and Technology.

  The term decoupling is defined by dictionary.com as:  to cause to become separated, disconnected, or divergent; uncouple.  It also defines decoupling as: to separate or diverge from an existing connection; uncouple.  When we apply this definition to the concept of inventory it becomes much easier to understand decoupling.  The Apics dictionary 14'th edition defines decoupling as "creating independence between supply and use of material."

  The image above is used for showing data on a value stream map.

​See also: Data Box for Definition

  A data box is a box drawn on a value stream map to illustrate and show data that is related to the process on the value stream map.  Some types of data that are commonly held within a data box are:

• Cycle Time
• Process Time
• Yield
• Lead Time
• Changeover Time
• Number of Shifts

 A process by which products are designed with ease of assembly in mind. If a product contains fewer parts it will take less time to assemble, thereby reducing assembly costs. In addition, if the parts are provided with features which make it easier to grasp, move, orient and insert them, this will also reduce assembly time and assembly costs. The reduction of the number of parts in an assembly has the added benefit of generally reducing the total cost of parts in the assembly. This is usually where the major cost benefits of the application of design for assembly occur.

  Demand stability refers to the reduction of variation that happens with supply and demand.