Business forecasting
Date
2011-04-13
Authors
Henderson, Nicholas Charles
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Abstract
Volatility has an impact on the accuracy of forecasting. The Company on which
this project report is based firmly believed that the agricultural segment of their
packaging manufacturing business was too volatile to forecast. Economic
pressures were however forcing this belief to be questioned. This project report
examined if forecasting was applicable to the business, what techniques could be
used and demonstrated the various techniques using data supplied by the
Company.
The main finding was that forecasting is applicable. Due to the volatility in the
individual product data it was recommended that forecasting be applied at the
aggregated family of products level. Adaptive filtering was consistently the most
accurate forecasting technique but a combined forecast using the simple average
of the various techniques was recommended.
This combined forecast produced adequate models but failed to forecast the
magnitude of the seasonal peak which is dependent on the climatic conditions
experienced
Description
MBA - WBS
Keywords
Business forecasting