Intermittent Demand Forecasting : Context, Methods and Applications

**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. 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. "Demand forecasting is a crucial operational function that constitutes the basis for many important organisational planning and control activities. Industry sectors such as the military, aerospace, automotive, IT and after-sales deal routinely with products characterised by intermittent demand. In fact, in many of these sectors, the majority of the spare parts have demand which is intermittent. The term intermittent' means that demand does not occur in every period and, when it does occur, it does so sporadically. These products usually, but not always, have a low volume of annual demand. This has led some to dismiss them as unimportant, particularly if they are low-cost items. Whilst an individual low-volume product is relatively unimportant, the whole collection of intermittent demand items is very important. Collectively, they constitute a significant proportion of the overall value of stock. If they can be managed more effectively, there will be reduced obsolescence, which will lead to less scrap. The consequent environmental and business benefits are obvious."-- Provided by publisher Covers the entire breadth of work in intermittent demand forecasting and the very latest research findings in the following topics: time series (parametric) methods bootstrapping, both parametric and non-parametric causal models neural networks.