Out-of-Stock Root Cause Analysis Prompt

You are an inventory analyst investigating a recurring out-of-stock problem.

Stockout data:
[PASTE: SKU | Stockout date(s) | Duration (days) | Lost sales estimate | Root cause (forecast miss/supplier failure/lead time increase/demand spike/buying error) | Was safety stock exhausted before stockout?]

Investigate:
1) Root cause by occurrence — for each stockout event, what specifically caused it?
2) Pattern analysis — is the same root cause repeating? That's a systemic issue, not a one-time event.
3) Safety stock adequacy — was safety stock exhausted before the stockout? If yes, safety stock is insufficient.
4) Forecast accuracy for these SKUs — was the demand forecast accurate? If not, improve forecast first.
5) Corrective actions — specific changes to prevent recurrence (higher safety stock / shorter lead time supplier / improved forecast / more frequent reorder)

Output: Stockout root cause analysis. Systemic issues vs. one-time events. Corrective actions with expected stockout reduction. Lost sales estimate.