The recording of our recent educational one-hour Webinar is now available for viewing on-demand https://youtu.be/XBYqjV6imS0 This session demystifies regression modeling, demonstrating how these models can provide insight into your data and why they often yield more accurate results than alternative forecasting methods. Learn: When to apply regression models How to build and diagnose the models [...]
Human review of a statistically-generated forecast is an important step in the forecast process. Ideally, every statistical forecast should be inspected for plausibility. At times, the sheer volume of the forecasts being generated precludes exhaustive individual inspection. In these instances, exception reports are an effective tool to help you sift through the forecasts and focus [...]
Demand history can provide forecasters with key insights into current trends, seasonal patterns and the relationships between demand and explanatory variables. Thus, creating forecasts when little or no demand history is available is particularly challenging. In this installment of Forecasting 101 we’ll examine different approaches to creating forecasts when little or no demand history is available. [...]
A forecasting technique which generates a forecast based solely on an item’s past demand history is referred to as a time series method. Typically, time series methods will capture structure in the history—such as current sales levels, trends and seasonal patterns—and extrapolate them forward. When the data are not trended and are not seasonal, a time [...]
Many organizations need to generate forecasts at very detailed levels. For example, a consumer products company may need an SKU-by-customer forecast, a shoe manufacturer may need a shoe-by-size forecast, or an automobile manufacturer may need a parts-level forecast. One approach to generating low-level forecasts is to apply statistical forecasting methods directly to the lowest-level demand [...]
Forecast Pro’s Expert Selection system can generate thousands of forecasts automatically; however, the automatic forecasting approach can fall short if the historical data do not represent a typical demand pattern for a given item because of certain events. For example, an unexpected large order may inflate the forecast for the following year, or a stockout [...]
The recording of our recent educational one-hour Webinar is now available for viewing on-demand http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2yt5Cd7fOo Learn about helpful tools that make it easier for you to focus on the specific items that need your attention: Outlier detection for highlighting anomalies in historic data. Exception reports for identifying problems in the forecasts. Item reports for quickly defining [...]
Watch the recording of our educational one-hour Webinar. http://youtu.be/coeFfecxNw8 You will learn: How event models work How and when event models should be used How to build customized event variables to meet your needs Best practices for applying event models
Forecasting is a dynamic and interdisciplinary field that involves a multitude of people, processes and techniques. Forecasters are constantly building on their current pool of knowledge in order to improve their processes, drawing on whatever resources they can find. A forecaster’s best resource, however, is often other forecasters—but it can be difficult to share information [...]
This installment of Forecasting 101 discusses the importance of tracking forecast accuracy, explains the basic approach and illustrates how to use the results to improve your forecasting process. […]
