Forecasting in supply chains

Sales forecasting is an indispensable part of sales and operations planning of companies throughout the supply chain. Though straightforward at first sight, forecasting in this operational context comes with various challenges. On the one hand, forecasts often need to be routinely made for large numbers of SKU's, which involves issues like model validation at a large scale, dealing with sparse data and the aggregation of SKU's to some convenient level. On the other hand, forecasts are made in an organizational context that involves various, sometime opposite interests, such as efficient inventory management versus low risk of selling out or plain monetary incentives, mayu bias outcomes. In part this project has addressed technical aspects of forecasting demand that occurs at irregular time intervals, so-called intermittent demand. This has led to innovative models that significantly outperform existing models in this area. Main effort, however, is in assessing the existence and influence of forecaster biases in demand forecasting. Experiments have been designed to monitor forecaster behavior in controlled settings. Moreover, models have been developed to identify clusters of forecasting patterns that characterize different forecasters. The results of these models and analyses are important to gain insight into how people use variable data for decision making in organizational contexts that are not free of interests.

External Partners

4C4More, Dinalog, TU Eindhoven, Unilever. 

Timing

This project is ongoing.

Working/Published Papers

Jan van Dalen, Clint Pennings, Collaborative Forecasting and Channel Coordination in a Perishable Goods Chain, IFORS 2014.

Clint Pennings, Paul Bouman and Jan van Dalen, Individual Choice and Payoff in Passenger Train Congestion: An Experiment, IFORS 2014.

Clint Pennings, Jan van Dalen, Stefanie Protzner, Laurens Rook, 2013, Judgmental Forecasting and Biases in a Company: Personality Traits, Departments, and Incentives, 26th European Conference on Operational Research, Rome, 1-4 July.

Clint Pennings, Jan van Dalen, Stefanie Protzner, Laurens Rook, 2013, Judgmental Forecasting and Biases in a Company, Informs Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, 6-9 October.

Stefanie Protzner, Laurens Rook , Clint Pennings, Jan van Dalen, 2013, Integrating Judgmental Forecasts: the role of functions, incentives and social value orientation, Informs Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, 6-9 October.

Pennings, C., van Dalen, J. & van der Laan, E. (2012). “Stochastic models for time-dependent intermittent demand.” 25th European Conference on Operational Research, 8-11 July, 2012, Vilnius.

PhD Thesis

Clint Pennings, n.d., Forecasting in supply chains (working title).

Video/Interview

Interview  TU Eindhoven Link

Interview Logistiek.nl 

Interview 4C4More