TY - JOUR

T1 - Forecasting intermittent demand

T2 - a comparative study

AU - Teunter, Ruud H.

AU - Duncan, Laura

PY - 2009

Y1 - 2009

N2 - Methods for forecasting intermittent demand are compared using a large data set from the UK Royal Air Force. Several important results are found. First, we show that the traditional per period forecast error measures are not appropriate for intermittent demand, even though they are consistently used in the literature. Second, by comparing the ability to approximate target service levels and stock holding implications, we show that Croston's method (and a variant) and Bootstrapping clearly outperform Moving Average and Single Exponential Smoothing. Third, we show that the performance of Croston and Bootstrapping can be significantly improved by taking into account that an order in a period is triggered by a demand in that period.

AB - Methods for forecasting intermittent demand are compared using a large data set from the UK Royal Air Force. Several important results are found. First, we show that the traditional per period forecast error measures are not appropriate for intermittent demand, even though they are consistently used in the literature. Second, by comparing the ability to approximate target service levels and stock holding implications, we show that Croston's method (and a variant) and Bootstrapping clearly outperform Moving Average and Single Exponential Smoothing. Third, we show that the performance of Croston and Bootstrapping can be significantly improved by taking into account that an order in a period is triggered by a demand in that period.

KW - forecasting

KW - inventory

KW - Intermittent demand

U2 - 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602569

DO - 10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602569

M3 - Journal article

VL - 60

SP - 321

EP - 329

JO - Journal of the Operational Research Society

JF - Journal of the Operational Research Society

SN - 1476-9360

IS - 3

ER -