Sales Forecasting Management

Sales Forecasting Management
Author: John T. Mentzer
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2004-11-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1452238391

Incorporating 25 years of sales forecasting management research with more than 400 companies, Sales Forecasting Management, Second Edition is the first text to truly integrate the theory and practice of sales forecasting management. This research includes the personal experiences of John T. Mentzer and Mark A. Moon in advising companies how to improve their sales forecasting management practices. Their program of research includes two major surveys of companies′ sales forecasting practices, a two-year, in-depth study of sales forecasting management practices of 20 major companies, and an ongoing study of how to apply the findings from the two-year study to conducting sales forecasting audits of additional companies. The book provides comprehensive coverage of the techniques and applications of sales forecasting analysis, combined with a managerial focus to give managers and users of the sales forecasting function a clear understanding of the forecasting needs of all business functions. New to This Edition: The author′s well-regarded Multicaster software system demo, previously available on cassette, has been updated and is now available for download from the authors′ Web site New insights on the critical area of qualitative forecasting are presented The results of additional surveys done since the publication of the first edition have been added The discussion of the four dimensions of forecasting management has been significantly enhanced Significant reorganization and updating has been done to strengthen and improve the material for the second edition. Sales Forecasting Management is an ideal text for graduate courses in sales forecasting management. Practitioners in marketing, sales, finance/accounting, production/purchasing, and logistics will also find this easy-to-understand volume essential.

Sales Forecasting

Sales Forecasting
Author: Mark Blessington
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015-10-10
Genre: Sales forecasting
ISBN: 9781505536843

Sales Forecasting is a practical guide for beginning and intermediate sales forecasters. The book does not use complex formulas. Instead, it is designed around the author's application of the learning curve to sales forecasting. Millions of sales forecasts are made by hundreds of thousands of people every year. Sales forecasts for every product and every sales territory in the world are made at least once a year, if not monthly. Then there are various aggregations of these forecasts, such as product to product line to division, and territory to district to region. Further, multiple functional areas across the company make sales forecasts. Sales, marketing, finance and manufacturing are all involved, at least on an annual basis, and often much more frequently. The sad truth is that few forecasters have any formal education or training on the subject. Part of this is because most forecasting books use numerous complex formulas, which are arcane, intimidating and off-putting. Another reason is that sales forecasters are encouraged to place too much trust in forecasting software by vendors who tend to make exaggerated and unsubstantiated claims about forecasting accuracy. Sales Forecasting breaks new ground. It re-invents the process of teaching the subject of sales forecasting. It is designed around the learning curve. The author's experience in day trading, along with decades of sales and marketing consulting, taught him the essential ingredients of sales forecasting. These are provided in Part 1 of the book. The first and most important skill is error measurement. The author makes a clear declaration about the best method and demonstrates its use throughout the book. The second skill is testing, and the author demonstrates how to divide historical sales data into in- and out-samples, calibrate models on the in-sample, and assess model accuracy by forecasting the out-sample. The third and fourth skills are avoiding linear extensions and mastering exponential smoothing. Part 1 is concluded with a description of the whole forecasting process and what is called "five-step forecasting." Part 2 moves into intermediate forecasting. Leading software packages are assessed through the author's research. Very little is published on forecasting software assessment, so this chapter plays an important role. Then ARIMA and ARIMAX are taught and demonstrated through multiple examples. These two methods, combined with exponential smoothing, form the foundation of intermediate forecasting. Perhaps the most exciting chapters in Part 2 involve aggregation. This is a fairly new field and it is growing rapidly. The author identifies some important gaps in the field, then fills them with his own research. Anyone involved in sales forecasting can benefit from these important findings. A chapter is dedicated to demonstrating the application of sound techniques to common forecasting challenges in marketing and sales departments: product planning and quota setting. It becomes quite clear that traditional methods generate far more error than the basic sales forecasting techniques taught in this book. The author also examines the topic of handicapping, or determining how much confidence to place on a forecast. He introduces the concept of "true confidence ranges" and also demonstrates the application of Bayesian probabilities to sales forecasting. To conclude the book, the author explores economic forecasting and closes with a discussion of common forecasting pitfalls to be avoided at all costs.

Sales Forecasting

Sales Forecasting
Author: Thomas F. Wallace
Publisher: T. F. Wallace & CO
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2002
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780967488417

Sales Forecasting Management

Sales Forecasting Management
Author: John T. Mentzer
Publisher: SAGE Publications, Incorporated
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1998-02-03
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Serving as a graduate level text as well as a guide for practitioners of sales forecasting management, this volume discuses the techniques and applications of sales forecasting analysis. Chapters cover managing the sales forecasting process; performance measurement; time- series forecasting techniqu

Intermittent Demand Forecasting

Intermittent Demand Forecasting
Author: John E. Boylan
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2021-06-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1119135303

INTERMITTENT DEMAND FORECASTING The first text to focus on the methods and approaches of intermittent, rather than fast, demand forecasting Intermittent Demand Forecasting is for anyone who is interested in improving forecasts of intermittent demand products, and enhancing the management of inventories. Whether you are a practitioner, at the sharp end of demand planning, a software designer, a student, an academic teaching operational research or operations management courses, or a researcher in this field, we hope that the book will inspire you to rethink demand forecasting. If you do so, then you can contribute towards significant economic and environmental benefits. No prior knowledge of intermittent demand forecasting or inventory management is assumed in this book. The key formulae are accompanied by worked examples to show how they can be implemented in practice. For those wishing to understand the theory in more depth, technical notes are provided at the end of each chapter, as well as an extensive and up-to-date collection of references for further study. Software developments are reviewed, to give an appreciation of the current state of the art in commercial and open source software. “Intermittent demand forecasting may seem like a specialized area but actually is at the center of sustainability efforts to consume less and to waste less. Boylan and Syntetos have done a superb job in showing how improvements in inventory management are pivotal in achieving this. Their book covers both the theory and practice of intermittent demand forecasting and my prediction is that it will fast become the bible of the field.” —Spyros Makridakis, Professor, University of Nicosia, and Director, Institute for the Future and the Makridakis Open Forecasting Center (MOFC). “We have been able to support our clients by adopting many of the ideas discussed in this excellent book, and implementing them in our software. I am sure that these ideas will be equally helpful for other supply chain software vendors and for companies wanting to update and upgrade their capabilities in forecasting and inventory management.” —Suresh Acharya, VP, Research and Development, Blue Yonder. “As product variants proliferate and the pace of business quickens, more and more items have intermittent demand. Boylan and Syntetos have long been leaders in extending forecasting and inventory methods to accommodate this new reality. Their book gathers and clarifies decades of research in this area, and explains how practitioners can exploit this knowledge to make their operations more efficient and effective.” —Thomas R. Willemain, Professor Emeritus, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Intelligent Fashion Forecasting Systems: Models and Applications

Intelligent Fashion Forecasting Systems: Models and Applications
Author: Tsan-Ming Choi
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2013-11-29
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642398693

Forecasting is a crucial function for companies in the fashion industry, but for many real-life forecasting applications in the, the data patterns are notorious for being highly volatile and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to analytically learn about the underlying patterns. As a result, many traditional methods (such as pure statistical models) will fail to make a sound prediction. Over the past decade, advances in artificial intelligence and computing technologies have provided an alternative way of generating precise and accurate forecasting results for fashion businesses. Despite being an important and timely topic, there is currently an absence of a comprehensive reference source that provides up-to-date theoretical and applied research findings on the subject of intelligent fashion forecasting systems. This three-part handbook fulfills this need and covers materials ranging from introductory studies and technical reviews, theoretical modeling research, to intelligent fashion forecasting applications and analysis. This book is suitable for academic researchers, graduate students, senior undergraduate students and practitioners who are interested in the latest research on fashion forecasting.

Advances in Production Management Systems. Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable and Resilient Production Systems

Advances in Production Management Systems. Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable and Resilient Production Systems
Author: Alexandre Dolgui
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 779
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 303085874X

The five-volume set IFIP AICT 630, 631, 632, 633, and 634 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International IFIP WG 5.7 Conference on Advances in Production Management Systems, APMS 2021, held in Nantes, France, in September 2021.* The 378 papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 529 submissions. They discuss artificial intelligence techniques, decision aid and new and renewed paradigms for sustainable and resilient production systems at four-wall factory and value chain levels. The papers are organized in the following topical sections: Part I: artificial intelligence based optimization techniques for demand-driven manufacturing; hybrid approaches for production planning and scheduling; intelligent systems for manufacturing planning and control in the industry 4.0; learning and robust decision support systems for agile manufacturing environments; low-code and model-driven engineering for production system; meta-heuristics and optimization techniques for energy-oriented manufacturing systems; metaheuristics for production systems; modern analytics and new AI-based smart techniques for replenishment and production planning under uncertainty; system identification for manufacturing control applications; and the future of lean thinking and practice Part II: digital transformation of SME manufacturers: the crucial role of standard; digital transformations towards supply chain resiliency; engineering of smart-product-service-systems of the future; lean and Six Sigma in services healthcare; new trends and challenges in reconfigurable, flexible or agile production system; production management in food supply chains; and sustainability in production planning and lot-sizing Part III: autonomous robots in delivery logistics; digital transformation approaches in production management; finance-driven supply chain; gastronomic service system design; modern scheduling and applications in industry 4.0; recent advances in sustainable manufacturing; regular session: green production and circularity concepts; regular session: improvement models and methods for green and innovative systems; regular session: supply chain and routing management; regular session: robotics and human aspects; regular session: classification and data management methods; smart supply chain and production in society 5.0 era; and supply chain risk management under coronavirus Part IV: AI for resilience in global supply chain networks in the context of pandemic disruptions; blockchain in the operations and supply chain management; data-based services as key enablers for smart products, manufacturing and assembly; data-driven methods for supply chain optimization; digital twins based on systems engineering and semantic modeling; digital twins in companies first developments and future challenges; human-centered artificial intelligence in smart manufacturing for the operator 4.0; operations management in engineer-to-order manufacturing; product and asset life cycle management for smart and sustainable manufacturing systems; robotics technologies for control, smart manufacturing and logistics; serious games analytics: improving games and learning support; smart and sustainable production and supply chains; smart methods and techniques for sustainable supply chain management; the new digital lean manufacturing paradigm; and the role of emerging technologies in disaster relief operations: lessons from COVID-19 Part V: data-driven platforms and applications in production and logistics: digital twins and AI for sustainability; regular session: new approaches for routing problem solving; regular session: improvement of design and operation of manufacturing systems; regular session: crossdock and transportation issues; regular session: maintenance improvement and lifecycle management; regular session: additive manufacturing and mass customization; regular session: frameworks and conceptual modelling for systems and services efficiency; regular session: optimization of production and transportation systems; regular session: optimization of supply chain agility and reconfigurability; regular session: advanced modelling approaches; regular session: simulation and optimization of systems performances; regular session: AI-based approaches for quality and performance improvement of production systems; and regular session: risk and performance management of supply chains *The conference was held online.

Information Systems for the Fashion and Apparel Industry

Information Systems for the Fashion and Apparel Industry
Author: Tsan-Ming Jason Choi
Publisher: Woodhead Publishing
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2016-04-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0081005806

Information Systems for the Fashion and Apparel Industry brings together trends and developments in fashion information systems, industrial case-studies, and insights from an international team of authors. The fashion and apparel industry is fast-growing and highly influential. Computerized information systems are essential to support fashion business operations and recent developments in social media, mobile commerce models, radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies, and ERP systems are all driving innovative business measures in the industry. After an introductory chapter outlining key decision points and information requirements in fast fashion supply chains, Part One focuses on the principles of fashion information systems, with chapters covering how decision making in the apparel supply chains can be improved through the use of fuzzy logic, RFID technologies, evolutionary optimization techniques, and artificial neural networks. Part Two then reviews the range of applications for information systems in the fashion and apparel industry to improve customer choice, aid design, implement intelligent forecasting and procurement systems, and manage inventory and returns. - Provides systematic and comprehensive coverage of information systems for the fashion and apparel industry - Combines recent developments and industrial best-practices in apparel supply chain management in order to meet the needs of the fashion and apparel industry professionals and academics - Features input from a team of highly knowledgeable authors with a range of professional and academic experience, overseen by an editor who is a leading expert in the field - Reviews the range of applications for information systems in the fashion and apparel industry to improve customer choice, aid design, implement intelligent forecasting and procurement systems, and manage inventory and returns

Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems XII

Transactions on Large-Scale Data- and Knowledge-Centered Systems XII
Author: Abdelkader Hameurlain
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 136
Release: 2013-12-06
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 3642453155

This, the 12th issue of Transactions on Large-Scale Data and Knowledge-Centered Systems, contains five revised selected regular papers. Topics covered include schema matching and schema mapping, update propagation in decision support systems, routing methods in peer-to-peer systems, distributed stream analytics and dynamic data partitioning.