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Natural Stupidity vs. Artificial Intelligence

Transcript of the talk given by Joannes Vermorel at SCTech 2024 on October 9th (2024). Symposium topic: 'Supply Chain Intelligence - Artificial or Not'.

Show me the money: Reflections on ISF 2024

Alexey Tikhonov reflects on Demand Planning and the Role of Judgment in the New World of AI/ML - his panel discussion at the 44th International Symposium on Forecasting in Dijon, France.

Demand Forecasting through Envision - Workshop #4

The 4th Envision Workshop offers guided training on building demand forecasts for a retail company using Lokad's Quantitative Supply Chain perspective and tooling.

The three classes of enterprise software

Joannes Vermorel presents three classes of enterprise software (systems of records, systems of reports and systems of intelligence) and the origins of budget misallocation among them.

A Nuanced Perspective on Harvard Business School’s Jagged Technological Frontier

Conor Doherty reviews a paper by Harvard Business School called Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier. TLDR: Quality is subjective; cost is not.

Lokad passes 20,000 Followers on LinkedIn

Another milestone in the ongoing development and adoption of the Quantitative Supply Chain ethos is passed.

An opinionated review of the Yann LeCun interview with Lex Fridman

Joannes Vermorel reviews Yann LeCun's remarkable interview with Lex Fridman titled “Meta AI, Open Source, Limits of LLMs, AGI & the Future of AI”.

Distribution Network Analysis through Envision - Workshop #3

This third Envision Workshop offers students and supply chain specialists guided training on analyzing the distribution network of a retail company using Lokad's Quantitative Supply Chain perspective and tooling.

AI chatbot for supply chains and Lokad

Lokad’s own digital assistant has been trained as a supply chain expert. This chatbot has been trained based on the bulk of Lokad’s own supply chain materials. Access to this chatbot is provided free of charge, courtesy of Lokad.

Probabilistic Exponential Smoothing for Explainable AI in the Supply Chain domain

Read Antonio Cifonelli's PhD research on Probabilistic Exponential Smoothing for Explainable AI in the Supply Chain domain—another great study showing that half a dozen clever tricks can turn a model as basic the exponential smoothing into a racing car that beats state-of-the-art Deep Learning models.

Sales Analysis through Envision - Workshop #2

This second Envision Workshop offers students and supply chain specialists guided training on analyzing retail customers from Lokad's probabilistic, risk management perspective.

Selective Path Automatic Differentiation: Beyond Uniform Distribution on Backpropagation Dropout

The Selective Path Automatic Differentiation (SPAD) approach enhances Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) by adopting a sub-data-point perspective. This technique, implemented at the compiler level, trades gradient quality for gradient quantity, supplementing traditional SGD methods with a more nuanced view.

An opinionated review of Deep Inventory Management

A team at Amazon has published Deep Inventory Management (DIM) late 2022. This paper presents an DIM inventory optimization technique that features both reinforcement learning and deep learning. As Lokad went through similar path in the past, its CEO and founder Joannes Vermorel provides his critical assessment of the suggested technique.

VS Code extension for Envision.

Envision, the domain specific programming language dedicated to the predictive optimization of supply chains just got its first open source VS Code extension that enables code coloring and code validation via compilation.

Differentiable programming to optimize over large scale relational data

Paul Peseux's PhD research on differentiating relational queries - another under-researched area of supply chain - introduced TOTAL JOIN operator, Polystar and a mini-language ADSL to differentiate relational queries, all of which Lokad integrated into its DSL Envision as part of autodiff for optimizing daily inventory decision-making.

Supplier Analysis through Envision - Workshop #1

Lokad launches its first Envision Workshop, teaching students (and supply chain specialists) how to analyze retail suppliers using Lokad's probabilistic, risk management perspective.

Inventory management under the constraint of multi-reference minimal order quantities

Gaetan Delétoille's PhD research on MOQs - a surprisingly under-researched area of supply chain - introduced the w-policy, something Lokad integrated into its solution for daily inventory decision-making.

Classification algorithms distributed on the cloud

Matthieu Durut, second employee at Lokad, defended his PhD back in 2012 for his research work done at Lokad. This PhD paved the way for the transition of Lokad toward cloud-native distributed computing architectures, nowadays critical to deal with large-scale supply chains.

Large scale learning: a contribution to distributed asynchronous clustering algorithms

Benoit Patra, first employee at Lokad, defended his PhD back in 2012 for his research done at Lokad. This PhD brought radically novel elements to the supply chain theory, and set the stage for the future development of Lokad's probabilistic forecasting approach.

RFI, RFP and RFQ madness in supply chain

Over the years, Lokad has gained some notoriety, and we have earned the privilege of being part of an increasingly large number of RFI (request for information), RFP (request for proposal) and RFP (request for quote) related to supply chain optimization.

The maintenance of the optimization

Lokad offers a flat monthly fee for software and expert services, ensuring optimal supply chain performance. Traditional optimization software fails due to inadequate maintenance. Lokad's supply chain scientists maintain automation, requiring ongoing engineering resources to prevent reverting to inefficient spreadsheet management.

Let’s try Lokad

The engineering teams at Lokad have spent the last decade refining Envision, a specialized programming language dedicated to the predictive optimization of supply chains. As it turns out, most supply chain optimization challenges are, well, weird (for lack of a better word) and mainstream software technologies fall flat on their faces when confronted with such challenges.

The role of IT

In many, probably most, large companies operating a supply chain, the IT department has years of backlog. The backlog is made of a myriad of glitches, inconsistencies, or fragilities that could be fixed but aren’t. Besides creating vast bureaucratic overheads, this endless series of pointless annoyances demotivates everyone.

Stochastic gradient descent with gradient estimator for categorical features

The broad field of machine learning (ML) provides a wide array of techniques and methods that cover numerous situations. Supply chain, however, comes with its own specific set of data challenges, and sometimes aspects that might be deemed basic by supply chain practitioners do not benefit from satisfying ML instruments – at least according to our standards.

LokadTV reaches 6000 subscribers

Almost exactly 18 months ago, I wrote a post to celebrate passing 3,000 subscribers on LokadTV. That post, in fact, was written almost 18 months after we celebrated passing 1,000 subscribers. Curiously enough, we passed 1000 subscribers about 18 months after we began actively promoting the channel.

On noise, NPCs, chatbots, and supply chain

The state of supply chain communication is dismal. By way of anecdotal evidence, for the last couple of months, my daily morning routine consists of attempting to find one post – just one – that qualifies as _worthy of interest_ to an audience of supply chain minded people – in order to have it shared on news.lokad.com. This seemingly simple exercise proves exceedingly difficult. Most days, I do not succeed.

Supply chain resilience requires bandwidth

The last couple of years haven’t been kind to supply chains. In fact, the only thing that hasn’t been in short supply appears to be forces of disruption':' lockdowns, wars, inflation, etc. As a result, a newfound interest in ‘resilient’ supply chains has emerged.

Pitfalls of supply chain for aeronautics

Aeronautics companies are fundamentally risk adverse – for very good reasons – and this reflects in the management of the companies’ activity in every area. However, this mentality can be a hindrance when it comes to supply chain, as avoiding risk and not integrating the very concept of risk at the heart of the supply chain means losing sight of what you are optimizing.

Differentiating Relational Queries

Supply chain data present themselves almost exclusively as relational data such as orders, clients, suppliers, products, etc. Those data are collected through the business systems - the ERP, the CRM, the WMS - that are used to operate the company.

Reproducible Parallel Stochastic Gradient Descent

The stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is one of the most successful techniques ever devised for both machine learning and mathematical optimization. Lokad has been extensively exploiting the SGD for years for supply chain purposes, mostly through differentiable programming. Most of our clients have a least one SGD somewhere in their data pipeline.

Launching Supply Chain News

The ambition of news.lokad.com is to create a vibrant online community. No terms to accept, no forced login, no ads, no monetization plan, just a plain discussion text-based board, with a voting system to let the most interesting contributions surface.

Forecasting Climate Change like a Supply Chain Planner

Transcript of the talk given by Joannes Vermorel at the Ecole polytechnique in Palaiseau (France) on Friday, June 3rd for the symposium 'Artificial Intelligence, Digital and Climate Change'.

Grand experiment on the TCO of a supply chain software

The price tag of a piece of software ranges from nothing, as it happens with open source, to quite a lot - enterprise software leaning heavily towards the latter. However, operating a piece of software always involves some degree of overhead. The notion of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) precisely tries to capture the cost in full, taking into account both direct and indirect costs.

Control and bureaucracies in Supply Chains

Over the years, it has become increasingly frustrating to witness that most companies seeking to improve their supply chain performance are setting themselves up for failure through their own RFP (request for proposals) and RFQ (request for quotes) processes.

How many people does it take to change a supply chain light bulb?

Supply chains involve a patchwork of enterprise software. These software layers have been gradually, and sometimes haphazardly, rolled out over the last four decades. The venerable EDI (Electronic data interchange) may sit next to a blockchain prototype.

Envision VM (part 4), Distributed Execution

The previous articles mostly examined how individual workers executed Envision scripts. However, both for resilience and for performance, Envision is actually executed across a cluster of machines.

Envision VM (part 3), Atoms and Data Storage

During execution, thunks read input data and write output data, often in large quantities. How to preserve this data from the moment it is created and until it is used (part of the answer is on NVMe drives spread over several machines), and how to minimize the amount of data that goes through channels slower than RAM (network and persistent storage).

Envision VM (part 2), Thunks and the Execution Model

Like most other parallel execution systems, Envision produces a directed acyclic graph (DAG) where each node represents an operation that needs to be performed, and each edge represents a data dependency where the downstream node needs the output of the upstream node in order to run.

Envision VM (part 1), Environment and General Architecture

A Supply Chain Optimization pipeline covers a wide range of data processing needs':' data ingestion and augmentation, feature extraction, probabilistic forecasting, producing optimal decisions under constraints, data exports, analytics, and dashboard creation.

Beyond time-series

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. The hammer long favored by the supply chain community has been time-series and, as a result, in supply chain circles all problems look like time-series forecasts. The hammering temptation is compounded by the extensive literature that exists on time-series forecasting beyond supply chain use cases.

Incrementalism is the bane of supply chains

Incrementalism in supply chain includes improving the forecasting accuracy, improving the service level, reducing the stock level, reducing the lead time. Despite its prevalence among large companies, this approach rarely yields any tangible benefit.

Supply Chain as a Service

In terms of predictive optimization, most supply chains are stuck in the early 1990s. As we started to address the root cause of predictive optimization failures, Supply Chain as a Service emerged as our business model.

Tidbits of supply chain terminology

The emergence of a terminology is, at best, a haphazard process. Supply chain is no exception and, in hindsight, a sizeable portion of supply chain terminology is inadequate. Confusing terminology hurts newcomers and seasoned practitioners alike. Newcomers struggle more than they should with accidental complexity. Practitioners may not realize that the premise of their field ismore shaky than it appears.

How many SKUs should a demand planner manage?

Lokad employs a team of around 30 supply chain scientists. The scientist is responsible for the data pipeline, the forecasts, the economic modelling and the end-game decisions. But how many SKUs do they manage?

LokadTV reaches 3000 subscribers

18 months ago, LokadTV had reached 1000 subscribers. Since that time, our audience has now tripled reaching 3000 subscribers. We remain committed to bringing topics of genuine interest to the supply chain community.

Why FTP instead of REST

Most web apps feature web APIs styled as REST, yet Lokad features FTPS and SFTP, which may appear surprising. However, this choice is intentional, why did Lokad choose to go this route?

Supply Chain Story: The Bullwhip Job

My first professional supply chain experience happened back in 2004. At the time, I was a computer science student at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), a university in Paris. My interests covered a wide range of wholly theoretical subjects, yet, I was also intrigued by the idea of testing out those theories in the wild.

The Adventures of Captain Obvious in Supply Chain

Captain Obvious has been working overtime in supply chain. His natural leadership has inspired many who are now following the same path. Yet, underneath the uniform, there is little to be found but a great deal of confusion.

42 tricks to achieve Supply Chain greatness

Many domains are complex, irredemiably so, and supply chain is certainly one of them. So what could an itemized list of tricks help you to achieve?

On the accidental complexity of supply chain systems

A single smartphone could technically run a predictive inventory allocation for a very large retail network, yet why do so many companies have such slow systems in place?

Supply Chain Lectures, but why?

I would like to share some insights into my motivations, as a CEO, for undertaking such a series of supply chain lectures. It boils down to the four key challenges faced by Lokad.

Refresh everything every day

Lokad’s supply chain practice is to refresh all the data pipelines - forecasts included - at least once a day. Why is that?

Factors of success in predictive supply chains

Wading through the miasma of supply chain technologies remains a challenge. What can help to guarantee success?

Ranked 6th out of 909 teams in the M5 forecasting competition

Lokad have come at the 6th position in the M5 Forecasting competition out of 909 competing teams. It’s an impressive feat.

Quantitative SCM vs Classic APS

Module-by-module comparison between classic APS (Advance Planning and Scheduling) systems and the quantitative supply chain as implemented by Lokad.

Why not Python

Envision, the domain-specific language (DSL) of Lokad, was engineered to address challenges where Python will never deliver cost-effective solutions.

LokadTV reaches 1000 subscribers

When we started our Youtube channel just over a year and a half ago, we never imagined we'd reach this milestone.

Forecasting as a self-fulfilling prophecy

What are the importance of feedback loops and how do we use them in our forecasts

A manufacturer's perspective

What solutions can Quantitative Supply Chain provide for large manufacturing companies?

Fall in love with the problem, not the solution

The most common strategy (tragedy) for software solutions remains replicating behavior that's essentially "human".

Humans in modern supply chains

"Machine should work; People should think." vs "Built for people not perfection". Two different visions.

Integers and uncertainty in differentiable programming

Technical insights on how two challenges are addressed from a differentiable programming perspective.

Differentiable Programming as in 'AI' that works

The path to unlock a series of supply chain scenarios that were before seen as largely intractable.

A numerical take on DDMRP

How much novelty does "Demand Driven Material Requirements Planning" really bring to the table for supply chains?

An algebra for supply chain economics

How zedfuncs algebra can be leveraged for probabilistic forecasting.

Real-time data exploration with slices

A new Envision feature for business-intelligence-on-steroid capabilities.

Lean scalable processing for supply chains

Are large scale calculations through cloud computing worth the cost?

Crafting homepages

Two brand new features to improve the overall user experience and aesthetics of our dashboards.

Columnar Random Forests

While random forests are no longer state-of-the-art machine learning they still offer advantages.

Happy New Year 2019!

2018 has been a fantastic year for Lokad and we're looking forward to 2019.

Dear Systems integrated

This popular cloud-based inventory management software is now natively supported by Lokad.

Website refresh

With so much information to convey, how do you make a website that's elegant and user friendly?

The limited applicability of backtesting

Backtesting is simple and elegant, but is it really a silver bullet?

Improving a forecasting technology

Learn more about how Lokad continues to deliver superior forms of supply chain optimization

Launch of LokadTV

With our new TV channel we aim to bring clarity to a wide range of topics.

Expanding office space at Lokad

We're thrilled to have a new home that's twice the size of our previous location.

Gold sponsor ACM programming contest

Learn more about the ACM programming contest and why we've become a Gold sponsor.

Beyond in-memory databases

In-memory databases used to be an IT buzzword, but it hasn't aged well

Book: The Quantitative Supply Chain

Discover why your supply chain deserves what machine learning and big data have to offer

From Crps to Cross Entropy

Thanks to CRPS Lokad cracked its aerospace & fashion challenges, but it's not without its flaws

Deep Learning as 5th gen forecasting engine

See how deep learning and GPU computing can change the forecasting landfield.

MRO Europe in London, join us!

Join our team for the 2017 edition of MRO Europe.

The age of online supply chains

Piwik, an open source web tracking software, is now natively supported by Lokad.

An aviation case study: Spairliners

Probabilistic forecasts applied to aviation discover Spairliners video case study.

Periodic demand forecast

A useful feature where demand is very steady and non-sparse.

Text mining for better demand forecasts

When data is lacking in depth, correlations can be leveraged to improve accuracy through text mining.

Entropy analysis for supply chain IT system discovery

The problem is not data-processing capabilities. The real challenge is to make sense of all your fields.

Probabilistic demand forecasting for Fashion

A retranscription of Lokad's talk at Vizions 2017. A new paradigm for the Fashion industry's supply chain.

The illustrated stock reward function

An infographic to better understand the stock reward function for computing the ROI for your stock.

The Supply Chain Scientist

Discover the role of the Supply Chain Scientist, the keystone of a Quantitative Supply Chain initiative.

Fashion demand forecasting

Forget the Open-To-Buy-method and manual pairing between collections. Think probabilistic forecasting.

Machine learning jobs at Lokad

Discover what working in our ML department entails and the complex challenges that need to be tackled.

The test of supply chain performance

Test your supply chain performance through 12 questions. Where do you stand?

2017, year of quantitative supply chain

Read our new supply chain manifesto and learn how this approach can transform your supply chain.

Markdown tile and Summary tile

Find new ways for displaying KPIs and detailed legends with our latest tiles.

Preparing enterprise data takes 6 months

Learn the importance of data preparation and the typical length of a proper set-up phase.

Probabilistic promotions forecasting

Forecasting promotions can be a nightmare. See how our forecasting engine deals with uncertain futures.

Ionic data storage for high scalability in supply chain

When throwing more machines at a data processing problem is not always the right solution...

Will compilation save supply chains?

For supply chains conventional IT wisdom often doesn't work, but compilation might just save the day.

Visualizing probabilities with histograms

Discover how histograms can help you deal with uncertain future lead times or demand.

Hiring Big Data Analyst and Software Engineer

How about joining the team and helping us dig into data?

Multicolor line charts

Envision now offers the possibility to specify a color for each line chart. Start beautifying your dashboards!

Senior software engineer wanted!

You're game for a bit of C#/.NET? How about joining the team?

Working with uncertain futures

The future is uncertain, learn how Lokad has embraced this through an algebra of distributions.

WinZip and 7z file formats now supported

Two new file formats are now supported, for an even faster transfer of your data.

Forecasting 4.0 with Probabilistic Forecasts

Discover what Machine Learning and high dimensional statistics can bring to your supply chain.

Autocomplete file paths with Envision

Check out the latest upgrade of our code editor for faster coding.

POCs don’t work in quantitative supply chain optimization

Despite vendors' claims, optimizing supply chains is hard. Learn why most POCs fail at the initial stage.

Q&A about inventory optimization software

Lokad's answers on a comparative study on inventory optimization softwares.

Uploading very large files through the web

It is now possible to upload arbitrarily large files through your favourite web browser into Lokad.

Joining tables with Envision

Natural joins are limited. Discover how to process a much broader range of tabular data.

Insights on the Lokad tech evolution

Lokad has transformed so much, from data and business drivers integration to probabilistic forecasts.

Stitch Labs Integrated by Lokad

Stitch Labs, a multichannel inventory management software, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Full automation ahead

Discover our new automation feature that offers both orchestration and scheduling possibilities.

Solving the general MOQ problem

Learn more about our new non-linear solver function for MOQ issues.

The Stock Reward Function

Aligning the scoring function with the business drivers and the iterative aspect of replenishment.

Hiring a software engineer with taste for compilers and big data

Are you willing to discover our in-house programming language Envision? Join the team!

Optimizing container shipments

Ordering lead times, volume and weight constraints, learn how to make the most out of your shipments.

Retail pricing strategies

Discover the new articles added in our knowledgebase concerning pricing strategies.

Price elasticity is a poor angle for looking at demand planning

Local indicators, thresholds, hidden co-variables, discover why price elasticity can be a poor fit.

Streetlight effect and forecasting

What's the similarity between the streetlight, a drunkard and forecasts?

Magento in beta at Lokad

Magento, a content management system for e-commerce, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Shopify integrated by Lokad

The retail platform Shopify is now natively supported by Lokad.

Forecasting the series of future orders to suppliers

See how cumulated uncertainty can quickly turn you forecasts into a worsless piece of information.

NetSuite integrated by Lokad

Netsuite, an extensive business suite, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Supply Chain Antipatterns, a Lokad initiative

Our new blog meant to gather the most frequent misguided responses to supply chain problems.

Beyond software: inventory optimization as a service

Discover our brand new Premier subscription plan, for an end-to-end inventory optimization service.

Data qualification is critical

Let's shed some light on data qualification, the second largest cause of projects failures.

Hiring our Chief Marketing Officer!

Do you want to be at the very heart of Lokad's growth? How about joining the team?

SkuVault natively integrated

SkuVault, a warehouse management software, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Competitive intelligence with Competera

Competera, a competitive price monitoring app, is now natively integrated within Lokad.

Currency exchange rates with Envision

A new feature meant to help you calculate your margins when you buy and sell in multiple currencies.

In the end, there can be only one

Discover why having an accumulation of indicators at the same time may do more harm than good.

Document your folders with MarkDown

A proper organization of your data is key in an optimization initiative. Discover how this feature can help.

Forecasting 3.0 with Quantile Grids

Accurate forecasts are a fairytale, see how Lokad counteracts this.

Wanted: competitive price monitoring partner

Competitive intelligence is fundamental in commerce. We're on the look for a price monitoring partner.

Salescast and Priceforge have been merged

Our inventory forecasting and our pricing optimization capabilities are now merged to improve their efficiency.

Advance scheduling of your forecasting reports

Lokad is now supporting a built-in integration with EasyCron to help you schedule a reports refresh.

Local management of inventory settings

Manage the inventory settings within your account by uploading a specific Excel sheet acting as repository.

Unleashed Software natively supported by Lokad

Unleashed Software, a SaaS inventory service, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Scheduling your Salescast executions

Discover how to schedule an execution in our inventory forecasting app using SetCronJob.

Orchestrating Priceforge projects with Salescast

The road towards integration continues, learn how to execute Priceforge projects with Salescast.

Vend natively supported by Lokad

Vend, a POS software, is now natively supported by Lokad

New pricing based on business turnover

Discover our new plans based on the size of your business, and start the optimization of your supply chain.

Built-in dashboards for Salescast

See what our new, fully customizable, Salescast dashboards can do for your business challenges.

Auto-refresh your data from Salescast

Salescast now has a brand new "Project creation wizard". Learn more!

Job: Quantitative Business Analyst

Are you passionate about data and ready to tackle a series of quantitative challenges? This job is for you!

Inventory forecasting for Aerospace

Discover how our new forecasting engine can tackle the challenges of the aerospace market.

Book: Quantitative Commerce Optimization

Discover in this book how our own technology can bring your company to the next stage of profitability.

Top 10 Oddities in Demand Forecasting

Here's a short list of the worst offenders when it comes to statistical oddities.

Lokad is hiring: junior and senior developers

How about joining the team? Our business is growing fast and we're looking for talented developers more than ever.

Mitigating supplier stockouts

Discover how our solution reduces the consequences of a supplier stockout without increasing your inventory.

Faster and better Priceforge

Discover our latest additions to Priceforge, for a faster data import and more control over your scripts.

Native Linnworks support

Linnworks, an order management software, is now natively supported by Lokad.

Sync by Lokad, native Brightpearl support

Import in 1-click your Brightpearl data into Salescast or Priceforge with our new web app.

Top 10 lies of forecasting vendors

An honest (and fun) review of software vendors' most common claims about their product.

Web API and file exports for Priceforge

Two new features allowing you to schedule a daily automated setup that will refresh your data and runs.

How to mitigate overfitting when forecasting demand?

How to avoid that your forecasting models are only accurate at predicting the past, not the future.

Visual dashboard editor for Priceforge

It is now possible to edit the layout of Priceforge's dashboards, for a more ergonomic visualization.

Short-term vs long-term pricing analysis

Price elasticity is a misleading metric, learn how to work around it.

Ignore prices, only pricing strategies matter

Discover why a transition from an implicit pricing strategy to an explicit one is what your business deserves.

We're hiring: Junior Account Manager

Are you willing to participate in the growth of Lokad by attracting new customers? This job is for you!

Control your service levels, don’t let them control you

Thanks to quantile forecasts, service levels can now be measured with high accuracy. Discover how.

Prestashop add-on for BotDefender

Stop the automated retrieval of your prices by competitors with this free add-on for Prestashop.

Priceforge released, pricing optimization for commerce

Sales, inventory, prices, web traffic, all your data in one app for a better understanding of you pricing strategy.

Magento add-on for BotDefender

Stop the automated retrieval of your prices by competitors with this free add-on for Magento.

New video: introduction to quantile forecasting

Where inventory optimization is concerned, classic methods often make no sense. Discover why.

New Professional Plan for Salescast, flat $225/month

We now offer a new Salescast plan, which is addressed to companies under 5 million USD of turnover.

BotDefender, new 3min video

Our app protects prices from being automatically retrieved by competitors, learn more in this video.

Megaventory integrates Salescast

Megaventory, a Saas solution dedicated to inventory and order management, is now natively integrated into Lokad.

Senior developer job at Lokad

Are you willing to put your competences in C#/.NET/MVC or Azure for our Big data app? Apply now!

New video for Salescast

Have a look at this video dedicated to Salescast, our inventory optimization webapp.

BotDefender protects your prices from competitors

See how Lokad protects you from the risk of losing money, due to the automated retrieval of your prices.

MoreForecast.com dedicated to Shopify merchants

Discover MoreForecast.com, and automate the data transfer between Salescast and Shopify.

eCommHub, drop-shipping experts recommends Salescast

A Salescast export format is now available for eCommhub powered merchants.

QuickBooks and Salescast integration that rocks with Webgility

QuickBooks is now connected to Lokad through Websiglity's eCommerceConnector.

Kit, bundles, assemblies and bills of materials

Salescast support is now available when you deal with kits, bundles, assemblies and bills of materials.

Whitepaper: Quantitative Inventory Optimization

Discover this whitepaper, jointly published with Brightpearl, on Quantitative Inventory Optimization.

Promotion planning in general merchandize retail - Optimization challenges

There is no optimization without measurement. In the case of promotions, what are you actually measuring?

Promotion planning in retail – Process challenges

When are forecasts produced? How are they used? Our beliefs in terms of optimizing the forecasting process.

Promotion planning in retail – Data Challenges

The quality of data is often underestimated. See why this becomes a problem when forecasting promotions.

Phasing out SQL from Salescast

A transition towards flat files, for a faster, easier and more secure transfer of your data.

Prevent dead inventory through double quantile forecasts

Discover how to reduce the risk of overstocking by performing a second quantile calculation.

Magento extension for Salescast released

Magento, one of the most popular e-commerce softwares, is now integrated into Salescast.

Optimizing inventory with kits or bundles

Do not store kits and store all kits pre-assembled, see how mixing the two approaches can maximise the ROI.

Hiring a Big Data developer

Passionate about Big Data? With one of the richest datasets in its field, Lokad is the right place to be!

Hiring a Web Marketing Expert

Are you an expert in inboud marketing? This offer is for you!

Quantum Forecaster unlocked

Discover our quantum forecaster prototype built in Russia and see how it will apply to forecasting. (April fool's)

Upload TSV files from the web

A new web interface has been released to allow you to upload your files directly from the web.

FTP hosting, push your files to Salescast

We launched a FTP hosting service, which allows you to upload and download files directly from Lokad.

Subtleties in lead time calculations

Business days vs calendar days, reordering delays, etc. Stop the lead time calculation madness with our tutorial.

Machine Learning and Big Data talk at TechDays 2013

Read more about Lokad's participation at the 2013 parisian edition ot the Microsoft TechDays.

Phantomscan, get rid of phantom inventory

Discover our new webapp, designed to predict which SKUs are most likely to have inaccurate records.

Roadmap for 2013

FTP as a service, Shelfcheck and even more forecasting accuracy. Discover all the upcoming improvements.

TSV flat files over FTP to feed Salescast

Today we put a new integration option via flat files into production . See how it works.

New Lokad-ers!

Lokad is getting bigger! Meet the people who joined our IT, Biz Dev and Data Analyst departments.

The best forecast error metric

Discover why money seems to be the one and only unit to be used to assess the performance of a forecast.

How to be bullish while being bearish: Berlin here we come!

We are proud to announce that we opened a new sales office in Berlin to continue our growth!

Introducing BIG DATA PLATFORM

Capture, store and exploit your data in a simple and efficient platform. All the benefits in an infographic.

Data Days 2012: Meet us in Berlin!

Here we'll discuss our experience in Big Data in both eCommerce and retail.

New Salescast pricing: Express (free) and Enterprise

Discover our new pricing plans specifically tailored to meet our customers needs.

The all new Salescast Forecasting & Inventory Optimizer

Discover the new Salescast, from a demand forecasting engine to a complete inventory optimization solution.

ECR Tag 2012: "Big Data intelligence at the point of sale"

Join the Lokad team at ECRTAG 2012 in Berlin, to discuss how Big Data can change supply chain.

Wired UK's 100 hottest startups in Europe

Wired Magazine featured Lokad among the 100 hottest startups in Europe!

Spare Parts Inventory Management with Quantile Technology

Thousands of parts, high service levels and infrequent demand. Our solution to address these issues.

Whitepaper: How Big Data will transform retail marketing

Individual client analysis, measurement of promotions, massive scalability. See what Big Data can do for you.

How Big Data will transform retail marketing

Big Data can help marketers in the conversion of campaigns into profits. Discover the factors involved!

Whitepaper on benchmarking Out-of-Shelf monitoring apps

We compared a series of OOS monitoring apps, to identify which one performs better.

Running a very large retail network on a smartphone

Wondering how a smartphone can manage up to 1 000 stores? Discover it in our whitepaper!

Whitepaper on Out-of-Shelf Monitoring Technology released

We compared a series of OOS monitoring apps, to identify which one performs better.

ROI = Return On Inventory?

Too much inventory reduces the return on invested capital, too little diminishes profits. How to optimize ROI?

Sparsity: when accuracy measure goes wrong

Discover what we consider to be the error metrics that wreak the most havoc for sales forecasting.

Video: Quantile Forecasts - Part 2

See through 3 unusual situations why quantile forecasts prove to be more accurate than classic forecasts.

Video: Quantile Forecasts - Part 1

Discover in this video what quantiles are, how they work and their advantages.

Out-of-shelf trilemma

Sensibility, precision and latency 3 unfavorable options to be balanced. See how!

Quantiles = Inventory Optimization 2.0

Learn about the most significant technology upgrade Lokad has had since its launch 6 years ago.

How much do you get for 1% extra accuracy?

The gains generated by more forecasting accuracy shouldn't be fuzzy. See how we calculate them.

Optimal service level and order quantity

Discover the two formulas that we developed to help you make the most of these two concepts.

Big data in retail, a reality check

Due to manpower constraints, retailers do very little of their market basket data. Learn what Big Data can do.

Roadmap for 2012

Even better forecasts, Shelfcheck, Hub and plenty of other projects. Discover what lies ahead.

Out-of-shelf can explain 1/4 of store forecast error

OOS can do a lot worse that just degrade the forecasting accuracy, OOS can also improve it...

Seasonality illustrated

Long time-series are more visual and appealing. Lokad opposes instead short time-series - discover why!

Video: How the Forecasting Engine works?

Questions about _under the hood_ details of Lokad are frequent. So, here are our forecasting engine's secrets.

Major UI refresh for Salescast

Salescast is 15 months old and it was time for an extensive user interface redesign.

Bitcoins accepted, 10% off for BTC payments

We are now accepting payments in Bitcoins and offering a special discount for early adopters.

Two KPIs for your OOS detector

Discover why sensibility and precision are the two fundamental metrics when judging an OOS system.

Development center in Russia opens its doors

The Ufa center will allow us to grow by working with the best people in the fields of statistics, cloud computing, etc.

Shelfcheck, on-shelf availability optimizer announced

We started working on Shelfcheck, a new product meant to help retailers improve on-shelf availability.

Retail niches, the cloud for non-geeks and CQRS for geeks

Three different topics written by three different members of the team. Keep on reading.

Major documentation upgrade for Salescast

This documentation upgrade explains Salescast's scope, its position against our competitors and much more.

European Supermarket Magazine features Lokad

Learn how Lokad "Embraces the cloud" in this article published on Europe's magazine for the ESM sector.

Video interview of Lokad's founder with Bruno Aziza

Discover the potential of cloud computing through this talk with the Director of Business Intelligence at Microsoft.

Weekly/Monthly aggregation is a lossy process

See how Lokad can identify patterns that would otherwise have been lost though the sales aggregation process.

Business is UP but forecasts are DOWN

Learn how to reverse your thinking and go against what seems logical for more accurate demand forecasting.

New Forecasting Technology FAQ

Discover our new FAQs covering the topics of seasonality, trend, product life-cycle, promotions and more.

Improving usability of mundane account tasks

You can now start using your PayPal account to log into Lokad.

Callcalc released, call volume forecasts in your mailbox

Discover the new version of our call center calculator based on cloud computing.

New CEO for Lokad, Matthias Steinberg

Get to know our new CEO, and Lokad's projects for 2011, through this interview.

Roadmap for 2011

Forecasting accuracy, CallCalc, internationalization, just a few of our projects for 2011. Discover them all!

Fallacies in data cleaning for (short-term) sales forecasts

Learn why Lokad does not provide any explicit feature supporting data cleaning.

Java Forecasting SDK released

Nearly stand-alone, with just a single dependency toward XStream, discover our newly released feature.

Reverse supply chain gotcha for demand forecasting

Understand why we strive to deliver demand forecasts rather than sales forecasts.

Micro-documentary video, interview with Lokad's founder

What is Lokad? What do we do? Learn the answers with this video. Take a look!

Lokad.CQRS v1.0 for Windows Azure released

Our guidance and frameword on efficiently building solutions for the cloud.

QuickBooks forecasts at last, with dbSync integration

We joined forces with dbSync, to improve the connection between QuickBooks' data and Lokad.

Width vs. Depth, Rotate your sales forecasts by 90 degrees

See why, with a 90° rotation, you can have much more input data available for your advanced models.

How bulk purchases impact safety stocks

Take a look at the maths and learn why a classical safety stock calculation is less than optimal.

Honored by the Windows Azure Partner Award of 2010

Lokad has been chosen among 3 000 participants and we are extremely proud of this recognition!

Designed for large scale forecasting with Windows Azure

Cloud computing offers more scalability and accuracy. Discover Lokad's architecture on Azure.

Salescast, sales forecasting made WAY EASIER

Salescast is live! Don't worry about data integration, we take care of it. Get your forecasts now!

Forecasting API v3 is live (REST + SOAP)

Let's welcome the 3rd version of our API, for a faster and easier use of our services.

Shortage vs. Stock, forecasting accuracy matters

The relationship between service level, safety stock & forecasting accuracy is sometimes fuzzy. Let's clarify.

Open Lokad accounts with Lokad.TinyAuth, a tiny REST API

We got rid of the manual registration step. You are now just a few seconds away to start with Lokad!

Forecast's species: classification vs. regression

The two species entail very different technologies. Discover our current setup and our next challenges.

30 days free trial vs. $30 free trial

Discover how our Free Trial with 30 USD of pre-paid services works and start improving your forecasts!

Auf Deutsch!

Wilkommen to the German translation of our website!

Measuring forecast accuracy

Accuracy measurement accounts for half of the complexity of our forecasting technology. See why.

Forecast consumption reports

Our app now shows your forecast consumption, to comply with our pay-as-you-go pricing.

Ask.Lokad and get answers

Discover our new Q/A forum powered by StackExchange, and get rid of all your doubts!

Tags and Events user guide

Happy 2010! Here at Lokad we start with the publication of the User guide for Tags and Events.

BizSpark One, we made it out of 25,000 startups

Lokad has been selected among more than 25 000 startups for the Microsoft BizSpark program.

Where does Windows Azure folks get their inspiration?

Once upon a time, there was a little company with little funds, but great ambitions... Lokad's fairytale

Unified pricing system

Discover our new pay as you go pricing service and start optimizing your inventory.

Scalable Forecasting, a Microsoft case study

Read about Lokad's forecasting technology using Azure, Microsoft's clouding computing platform.

Internet is needed for your forecasts

We are not an on-premise solution. The 3 reasons why the Internet is essential throughout the process.

Refreshing Min/Max inventory planning

Contrary to what some believe, Min/Max neither defines nor prevents any inventory optimization strategy.

Roadmap for 2010

A new pricing, 2 vertical apps, an easier integration with 3rd party apps and more. Our plans for 2010!

Follow us on Twitter

We are on Twitter! Follow Lokad and the members of our staff for the latest updates.

Modeling varying lead time

High service levels do not come for free. Discover the impact of varying lead times on this.

Understanding varying lead time

Learn more about the root cause of lead time variation and how Lokad takes it into account.

What's your statistical model?

We don't deliver models, we deliver forecasts. Learn the benefits of our setup.

What's wrong with promotion forecasts?

Promotions are vital for any business. See our approach and how to make the most out of them.

Oct 1st, inauguration party of new Lokad offices

After spending 14 months at ParisTech, we have now moved into a bigger location close to Place d'Italie.

Supporting the NormaleSup sailing team

We supported the NormaleSup crew at the Tour de France à la Voile 2009 and ended up on the podium!

New team member, Christoph Rüegg

Let's welcome Christoph Rüegg, an experienced developer who will help us develop our technology.

OpenID is now supported

You can now register through OpenID or add your OpenID credentials to your Lokad account.

New team member, Dario Solera

A new developer has joined the team to help us develop the next generation of forecasting tools.

Better product launch forecasts

Are you guesstimating product launches? Discover what our Safety Stock Calculator can do for you!

Safety Stock and Call Center Calcs v2.3 released

Two releases focused on reliability and performance through the migration towards our Forecasting SDK.

Favorite Forecasting Models

Do we have ONE favorite model? Definitely not, our technology is much more complex.

Forecasting in the clouds and Lokad.Cloud

We started migrating towards Windows Azure, for unlimited scalability and even better forecasts.

Scalability upgrade, Downtime on May 27th

A 6 hour technical downtime will be necessary in order to upgrade our storage system.

Magento+youcalc, volunteer merchants needed!

Are you a Magento user, willing to test our mock app that reports stock covers? Keep on reading!

Machine learning company, what’s so special?

From virtually non-existent to mainstream. The challenges of a constantly evolving field.

Overfitting: when accuracy measure goes wrong

Overfitting is a real business problem and it costs money. See our recipe to counterbalance the risks.

Gentle introduction of Lokad: the slidecast

A gentle introduction to our company. What we do, our apps and a complete focus on forecasting.

Better promotion forecasts in retail

After analysing 1000's of promotional events, we've been led to some very interesting findings.

Forecasting in .NET with the Lokad SDK 2.0

Discover the new version of our Software Development Kit for Microsoft .NET.

Sales forecasting for Microsoft Excel 2007

We have released an Add-in that will instantly enhance Excel 2007 with our powerful cababilities.

Flat forecasts

Wondering why the forecasts you get from Lokad are simply flat? Here is the answer.

Single DLL for the .NET forecasting SDK

Our Software Development Kit now fits into a single assembly, for a more practical use.

Startup of the week on BizSpark

We have proudly been selected as Startup of the week on the BizSparksDB by Microsoft.

L3C 2.0 released

We welcome the new version of our Call Center Calculator, supporting events on top of raw call volumes.

Happy New Year 2009 - LSSC 2.0 released

To wish you a wonderful new year, we released the 2.0 version of our Lokad Safety Stock Calculator.

Back from a few talks

Learn more about our participation at the Microsoft round table and the 2008 ARD forum.

Forecasting Api V2 and Sdk for Net Released

Discover the new version of our forecasting API and Lokad SDK, a development-oriented library.

Microsoft talk: Software + Services

On Dec 1st, Lokad will be taking part in a round table dedicated to Software+Services strategies.

Cloud computing

Read our founder's review of Cloud Computing companies such as Azure, Amazon, Google, etc.

Forecasting API v2 - tags

Discover how tags will allow our API to produce statistical forecasts with little or no data.

Forecasting API v2 - events

Learn why events are essential to further refine the quality of the forecasts we deliver.

OpenERP gets supported in LSSC v1.8

Our Safety Stock Calculator now supports Open ERP, an open source management solution.

Wisdom of crowds and future enterprise software

Discover why so many companies leverage their respective communities to better fulfill their goals.

Why you should not care about seasonality

Seasonality, as well as weekly and daily patterns, are natively handled by Lokad.

Video tutorial for Safety Stock Calculator

Learn how to get started with LSCC, how to import your data and how to generate reports.

Forecasting with PHP5

2018 has been a fantastic year for Lokad and we're looking forward to 2019.

LSSC v1.6- bugfix release

Our new version is more reliable for large datasets. Discover all the other improvements.

Keeping track of errors to improve later on

We do not wait for errors to happen. Thanks to cross-validation we can anticipate them.

Call Center Calculator v1.0 released

Discover how to predict the volume of calls and optimise staff levels with our latest app.

Polish (bis), LSSC v1.5 supports Sage Line 50

A release that comes with several improvements, including an improved data import from Excel.

We need to talk

Can't wait to talk to us? Here are our phone numbers for the USA and France.

ADempiere, Compiere and Crimzone

Both ADempiere and Compiere are now supported by our Safety Stock Calculator thanks to Crimzone.

More polish, LSSC v1.3 released

Following your comments, we improved our Safety Stock Calculator.

Ground breaking data analytics with Kirix Strata

Discover our partnership with Kirix Strata. Data analytics and advanced forecasting at your service!

Programmer's guide for the Time Series API

Learn more about our new addition to our Developer's corner.

Forecasting methods for Excel

Willing to learn how to perform basic forecasts with Excel? Our guide is for you!

Lokad at Seedcamp

We took part in the Seedcamp day in Paris to discuss with many inspiring enterpreneurs.

Safety Stock Calculator v1.1 released

The release comes with 6 newly supported apps - QuickBooks and Shop-Script among others.

Paris Mayor Delanoë visits Lokad

The Mayor discussed with our founder the benefits that our solution could have for the city of Paris.

Safety Stock Calculator v1.0 released

The release supports numerous third party apps including Sage, Magento, PrestaShop, and others.

When 3 buttons are just way too much!

We removed two buttons. Get the latest version of your reports in just one click.

Developer's corner

We just added a special section on our website to gather the information dedicated to developers.

Beta version of Safety Stock Calculator released

The new application will provide reorder points optimization and stock coverage analysis.

Excel Sales Forecasting 1.3 released

This latest release includes bugfixes and a major performance improvement.

Unfortunate "period start" setting name

We've renamed our parameter for period referencing for improved forecasts.

Desktop Sales Forecasting v1.3 released

The release includes, among other things, a new provider for Excel.

Open source commitment

All our integration components are released as open source for a greater control on your IT infrastructure.

Drafting Call Center Calculator

Discover our new application, completely dedicated to the call center industry.

Lokad is hiring

We added a careers section to our website. Discover all the open positions!

Lokad selected for Microsoft IDEES

The IDEES program is rewarding the 25 most innovative French startups each year. Fingers crossed!

Errors are part of the (web) service

Learn why Lokad has decided to extend the Web API with estimated forecastst errors.

Bugfix release - Excel Sales Forecasting 1.2

A new addin capable of retrieving data from 20 third party apps and much more has been released today.

Drafting Safety Stock Calculator

We started working on an analytics application that will be dedicated to inventory optimization.

Dealing with exceptional sales

We are working on a solution dedicated to safety stock calculations, to better handle exceptional sales.

Prediction markets vs. Lokad

Discover why our software makes a difference when it comes to forecasting in this comparative article.

Choosing the right forecast period

This topic is often left unanswered. Discover with us how to increase forecasting accuracy.

Chinese food vs. Sports bar while forecasting sales

See why Lokad relies on statistical correlations instead of focusing on industry segments.

Forecasting in Python the Web Services Tutorial

Learn how to use our Forecasting Web Services through this complete Python tutorial.

Excel Sales Forecasting 1.1 released - many bugfixes

Today's release includes a series of improvements and fixes. Discover them all in our detailed changelog.

Past stock-outs may generate future stock-outs

Discover why increasing your forecast accuracy here and now is key to increasing accuracy tomorow.

C++ time-series forecasting tutorial with gSOAP

A new tutorial for C++ has been published. Check it out!

Statistical Learning vs. Statistical Forecasting

Although the two terms can be used as synonyms, in fact they are not. Discover why.

Calculate safety stocks with Microsoft Excel

Read our guide on how to calculate safety stocks with sales forecasting.

Simplicity vs. Flexibility - Forecasts at stake

If the forecasting process is too complicated and time consuming, are there benefits? We choose simplicity!

The No1 never asked question about forecasting

Discover our position concerning forecasting errors and the error function(s) we use.

Perceived quality issues in forecasting

Don't let perceived quality stop you. To make the most of Lokad, you need to know how statistical forecasting works.

Forecasting for staff scheduling software

Lokad's statistical forecasting applied to staff management. Have a look at our case study.

Would you pay for moving average?

Lokad is not using any silver-bullet model. What we use is the best available model for a specific situation.

Ohloh reporting for Lokad open source

Do not hesitate to grant Lokad a few Ohloh stacks, in order to increase our open-source contributions.

Forecasting and planning for small businesses

Lack of planning leads to failure; instead, strategic planning is the key to grow your business.

NEW Excel Sales Forecasting v1.0 released

Discover all the potentialities of this add-in for Microsoft Excel.

Business forecasting and its practical application

If you think that your business doesn't need forecasts, you are sorely mistaken...

Paypal adds Lokad in its solution directory

Our Lokad Desktop Sales Forecasting has been supporting Paypal since the version 1.1.3.

Selecting a forecasting method

Beside the product life cycle and the type of firm, there are many criteria to be evaluated.

Workload Forecasting v1.0 released

Discover our new app, meant to help you forecast future workloads and the right amount of staff needed.

Issues in Technological Forecasting

See why it is useful to combine different technologies' forecasts in order to gain more accuracy.

NEW Call Center inbound volume forecasting

Two new periods have been introduced to support call center workload forecasting.

Forecasting for μCommerce?

What should a forecasting software for micro-commerces include? Discover it in this article.

Convert your web logs into time-series

A practical guide on how to convert W3C web server log files into time-series.

Top 8 reasons why sales forecasting don't work

We consider that these top 8 reasons can be consolidated into 2 main obstacles.

Data importing made easy

Read more about Swivel, a one-of-a-kind Web 2.0 for data sharing.

Want more accuracy? Start uploading now!

We are working for you! By uploading your data, you make it possible for us to improve our forecasts.

Worlds of Forecasting Software

Let's have a look at the different uses of the term "Forecasting Software"? Where do we (you) stand?

Forecasting accuracy and data you don't have

Future values are unknown, but statistics (and Lokad) do propose solutions to this problem.

Lokad Desktop v1.2 released

The new version comes with a dedicated Get Started dialog that will facilitate the retrieval of your reports.

100 USD of pre-paid services for our survey

Customer feedback is gold. That's why we can't wait to read your replies to our survey!

Pricing page gets refactored

We released a new version of our pricing page. All our plans at a glance!

Demand Forecasting vs. Sales Forecasting

Learn the subtle but important distinctions between these two concepts.

Pricing formula - Why power 2/3 ?

The more you forecast, the more you pay but with a discount. See the rationale behind our pricing formula.

Deutsch - Français: path of internationalization

We started localizing the content of our website. Let's welcome our FR and DE versions!

Can't afford Lokad? Try our new Partner plan

Discover how to benefit from our Partner Plan, specifically adressed to eCommerce retailers.

Microsoft Office Marketplace and OpenBravo

We are very proud to announce that Lokad has been listed both by Microsoft and Open Bravo. Have a look!

New skin for the Lokad website

Discover the new, more appealing, version of our website.

Want more open source? Nominate Lokad on SF.NET

If you want more add-ons, support us on Sourceforge.net!

Forecast your Paypal sales

Lokad now retrieves all your Paypal sales history to generate sales forecasts reports.

Source code search engine

The Lokad SF.NET project has now its own source code search engine. Try it out!

Lokad osCommerce Sales Forecasting v2.0.4 released

The release includes a bugfix concerning the time-serie aggregation and much more.

Lokad Forums - Upgraded & Expanded

Discover Forecasting for Business, for a broadened topic coverage, and keep posting!

Web Services get featured - ProgrammableWeb & eSigma

Our Web Services are receiving more and more recognitions. Discover the latest.

CubeCart, OfBiz, OpenBravo, TinyERP, VirtueMart

The new version of our Desktop Sales Forecasting comes with a native support for 5 apps.

Upgraded customer support system

To improve our customer support system we released a new, dedicated platform for customer support.

Forums and Community are down (fixed)

Both our Forums and Community are back on track. Enjoy!

Web Services migration - Part 3/3

Migration is now completed. Don't forget to update the URL used by your Lokad add-on.

Lokad osCommerce Sales Forecasting v2.0.3 released

The release comes with a few bug fixes correcting the sales aggregation.

Future of the "Professional" subscription plan

Our Professional Plan will be removed soon. Current customers will be upgraded at no extra cost.

Web Services migration - Part 1/3

A migration of our Web Services is on its way to reduce downtime and improve performance.

Web Services migration - Part 2/3

We have now re-released the sales forecasting add-ons.

APP.LOKAD.COM is now the root of the web application

We moved our Web application to a new location, to improve performance and reduce downtime.

FORUMS.LOKAD.COM is our new bulletin board

We set up our own web forum, for a better forum software, no ads and a shorter URL. Check them out!

Holbi becomes a Lokad partner

Hobli, a custom e-commerce solution, has become our first IT services partner.

Desktop Sales Forecasting v1.0.9 - Perf, GUI and QuickBooks

Discover the latest additions to our app, local caching, progress bar, bugfixes and much more.

Lokad icon set

To better differentiate our products, we unveiled a new series of icons.

Lokad gets a Dynacom Performance Grant

We now support Dynacom both under MS Acces and under MS SQL Server.

Lokad Desktop v1.0.7 supports MS Office Accounting 2007

This release comes with performance improvements and a support for MS Office Accounting 2007.

Lokad osCommerce Sales Forecasting v2.0 released

The new release includes an improved performance, a massive code refactoring and much more.

Lokad becomes a Corporate Partner of osCommerce

Os Commerce customers will from now now benefit from Lokad's unique expertise in sales forecasting.

Starting the partnership program

Discover our partnership program. We are looking for software editors, IT providers and hosting providers.

Lokad gets featured by Mediachase

Mediachase, a leading eCommerce Framework, has listed Lokad among its 3rd party solutions!

Miscellaneous ranking info

We are very proud of those figures, considering that Lokad has only been active for a couple of months.

The origin of the name LOKAD

Discover the history behind our name. From our first project up until now.

Lokad Sales Forecasting for osCommerce v1.0 released

You can now get daily/weekly/monthly sales forecasting within your admin panel in osCommerce.

QuickBooks gets supported!

Our Desktop Sales Forecasting now supports QuickBook. See how to connect it with our tutorial.

www.lokad.com is down - fix is under way (FIXED)

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Failing at forecasting Sin(x) and Cos(x)

Why toy mathematical expressions are not gold when you deal with real-world business data.

New customer-friendly terms and conditions

Rewarded contributions and no upfront payment. Just a few of our new T&C. Discover more.

Notes about concurrent time-series (i.e. multi-parameters)

Lokad automatically detects implicit relationships between time-series. Discover the benefits.

Lokad Desktop Sales Forecasting v1.0 released

Start getting your sales forecasts integrated into your favorite accounting/commerce/ERP application.

Extended application support for sales forecasting

We are currently extending our application support spectrum. Discover which apps are on the pipeline.

Community website migrated to community.lokad.com

Our community website is now supported by the wiki platform ScrewTurn.

Lokad OpenShell v1.0 released (PowerShell snap-in)

A new addition meant to facilitate RAD approaches while integrating our technology into your business.

Lokad Sales Forecasting for ASP.Net eCommerce applications

Synchronize the sales data of you eCommerce platform with Lokad with this add-on.

A sandbox to play with Lokad

Lokad's Sandbox, a replicate of our production website, is now widely accessible for free.

Lokad Web Services and interoperability

Learn how to use our Web Services through a series of tutorials in Java, PHP and C#.NET.

New community wiki for the open source initiatives

Get the latest information about Lokad on our new community wiki hosted on WetPaint.

Lokad pricing revised

Discover our new prices, specifically designed to be more competitive on the webshot market.

Sales forecasting for osCommerce - pre-release program

Interested in a sales forecasting module? Register now to be awarded 6 months of free Lokad services.

Missing time-series vs. Empty time-series

Learn more about the vital differences between these two concepts.

Web Services Tutorial in C# (again)

Learn how to perform the basic operations associated with your Lokad account.

Web Services Tutorial in C#

Discover our .Net project illustrating how to perform a round-trip with our Web Services.

Open source initiatives for Lokad integration

We have started to work on various applications that will be released under BSD licence. Stay tuned!

Upcoming Lokad User Guide

Find here a summary of what you will see in our User Guide.

Upcoming documentation

Our documentation part will be filled soon to address your main questions about forecasts and Lokad.

Do not make a sum with your forecasts

See why you should instead aggregate the different time-series into one before performing a forecast.

Lokad gets live!

We have released the first version of Lokad. Feel free to give us your feedback, it's highly appreciated!

Pre-release comments on COLOSSUS

As our first release approaches, discover more about Lokad's time-series forecasting technology.