IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/jorsoc/v60y2009i1d10.1057_jors.2008.173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting for inventory planning: a 50-year review

Author

Listed:
  • A A Syntetos

    (Salford University)

  • J E Boylan

    (Buckinghamshire New University)

  • S M Disney

    (Cardiff University)

Abstract

Forecasting and planning for inventory management has received considerable attention from the Operational Research (OR) community over the last 50 years because of its implications for decision making, both at the strategic level of an organization and at the operational level. Many influential contributions have been made in this area, reflecting different perspectives that have evolved in divergent strands of the literature, namely: system dynamics, control theory and forecasting theory (both statistical and judgemental). Although this pluralism is healthy in terms of knowledge advancement, it also signifies the fragmentation of the OR discipline and the lack of cross-fertilization of ideas to develop more comprehensive approaches towards the resolution of the same issues. In this paper, the relevant literature is reviewed and synthesized to promote some convergence between these different approaches to inventory forecasting and planning. The review concludes with an inter-disciplinary agenda for further research.

Suggested Citation

  • A A Syntetos & J E Boylan & S M Disney, 2009. "Forecasting for inventory planning: a 50-year review," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 149-160, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:60:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1057_jors.2008.173
    DOI: 10.1057/jors.2008.173
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/jors.2008.173
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/jors.2008.173?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peter R. Winters, 1960. "Forecasting Sales by Exponentially Weighted Moving Averages," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 6(3), pages 324-342, April.
    2. Derek Bunn & George Wright, 1991. "Interaction of Judgemental and Statistical Forecasting Methods: Issues & Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(5), pages 501-518, May.
    3. Fran Ackermann & Colin Eden & Terry Williams, 1997. "Modeling for Litigation: Mixing Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 27(2), pages 48-65, April.
    4. Taylor, James W., 2003. "Exponential smoothing with a damped multiplicative trend," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 715-725.
    5. Fildes, Robert & Goodwin, Paul & Lawrence, Michael & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos, 2009. "Effective forecasting and judgmental adjustments: an empirical evaluation and strategies for improvement in supply-chain planning," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 3-23.
    6. A Paucar-Caceres & R Rodriguez-Ulloa, 2007. "An application of Soft Systems Dynamics Methodology (SSDM)," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(6), pages 701-713, June.
    7. Syntetos, Aris A. & Boylan, John E., 2005. "The accuracy of intermittent demand estimates," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 303-314.
    8. Gaalman, Gerard & Disney, Stephen M., 2009. "On bullwhip in a family of order-up-to policies with ARMA(2,2) demand and arbitrary lead-times," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(2), pages 454-463, October.
    9. Syntetos, Aris A. & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos & Boylan, John E. & Fildes, Robert & Goodwin, Paul, 2009. "The effects of integrating management judgement into intermittent demand forecasts," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(1), pages 72-81, March.
    10. O'Connor, Marcus & Remus, William & Griggs, Ken, 1993. "Judgemental forecasting in times of change," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 9(2), pages 163-172, August.
    11. Miller, Don M. & Williams, Dan, 2003. "Shrinkage estimators of time series seasonal factors and their effect on forecasting accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 669-684.
    12. Peter Maurice Catt, 2007. "Assessing the Cost of Forecast Error: A Practical Example," Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting, International Institute of Forecasters, issue 7, pages 5-10, Summer.
    13. Gardner, Everette Jr. & Koehler, Anne B., 2005. "Comments on a patented bootstrapping method for forecasting intermittent demand," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 617-618.
    14. Dekker, Mark & van Donselaar, Karel & Ouwehand, Pim, 2004. "How to use aggregation and combined forecasting to improve seasonal demand forecasts," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 151-167, July.
    15. Everette S. Gardner, Jr. & Ed. Mckenzie, 1985. "Forecasting Trends in Time Series," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 31(10), pages 1237-1246, October.
    16. Nada R. Sanders & Karl B. Manrodt, 1994. "Forecasting Practices in US Corporations: Survey Results," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 92-100, April.
    17. Klassen, Robert D. & Flores, Benito E., 2001. "Forecasting practices of Canadian firms: Survey results and comparisons," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 163-174, March.
    18. Teunter, Ruud & Sani, Babangida, 2009. "On the bias of Croston's forecasting method," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 194(1), pages 177-183, April.
    19. Everette S. Gardner, Jr. & David G. Dannenbring, 1979. "Using Optimal Policy Surfaces to Analyze Aggregate Inventory Tradeoffs," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 25(8), pages 709-720, August.
    20. Donna F. Davis & John T. Mentzer & Teresa M. Mccarthy & Susan L. Golicic, 2006. "The evolution of sales forecasting management: a 20-year longitudinal study of forecasting practices," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(5), pages 303-324.
    21. Frank Chen & Zvi Drezner & Jennifer K. Ryan & David Simchi-Levi, 2000. "Quantifying the Bullwhip Effect in a Simple Supply Chain: The Impact of Forecasting, Lead Times, and Information," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(3), pages 436-443, March.
    22. Herbert J. Vassian, 1955. "Application of Discrete Variable Servo Theory to Inventory Control," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 3(3), pages 272-282, August.
    23. A H C Eaves & B G Kingsman, 2004. "Forecasting for the ordering and stock-holding of spare parts," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 55(4), pages 431-437, April.
    24. Goodwin, Paul, 2002. "Integrating management judgment and statistical methods to improve short-term forecasts," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 127-135, April.
    25. Hau L. Lee & Kut C. So & Christopher S. Tang, 2000. "The Value of Information Sharing in a Two-Level Supply Chain," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(5), pages 626-643, May.
    26. Everette S. Gardner, 1990. "Evaluating Forecast Performance in an Inventory Control System," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(4), pages 490-499, April.
    27. E A Shale & J E Boylan & F R Johnston, 2006. "Forecasting for intermittent demand: the estimation of an unbiased average," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 57(5), pages 588-592, May.
    28. H Chen & J E Boylan, 2007. "Use of individual and group seasonal indices in subaggregate demand forecasting," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 58(12), pages 1660-1671, December.
    29. Porras, Eric & Dekker, Rommert, 2008. "An inventory control system for spare parts at a refinery: An empirical comparison of different re-order point methods," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 184(1), pages 101-132, January.
    30. Hau L. Lee & V. Padmanabhan & Seungjin Whang, 1997. "Information Distortion in a Supply Chain: The Bullwhip Effect," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 43(4), pages 546-558, April.
    31. P. J. Harrison, 1967. "Exponential Smoothing and Short-Term Sales Forecasting," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 13(11), pages 821-842, July.
    32. Dejonckheere, J. & Disney, S. M. & Lambrecht, M. R. & Towill, D. R., 2004. "The impact of information enrichment on the Bullwhip effect in supply chains: A control engineering perspective," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 153(3), pages 727-750, March.
    33. Willemain, Thomas R. & Smart, Charles N. & Shockor, Joseph H. & DeSautels, Philip A., 1994. "Forecasting intermittent demand in manufacturing: a comparative evaluation of Croston's method," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 529-538, December.
    34. P. J. Harrison & O. L. Davies, 1964. "The Use of Cumulative Sum (Cusum) Techniques for the Control of Routine Forecasts of Product Demand," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 12(2), pages 325-333, April.
    35. Lalwani, Chandra S. & Disney, Stephen M. & Towill, Denis R., 2006. "Controllable, observable and stable state space representations of a generalized order-up-to policy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 172-184, May.
    36. Srinivasan Raghunathan, 2001. "Information Sharing in a Supply Chain: A Note on its Value when Demand Is Nonstationary," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 47(4), pages 605-610, April.
    37. Syntetos, A. A. & Boylan, J. E., 2001. "On the bias of intermittent demand estimates," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-3), pages 457-466, May.
    38. S. A. Roberts, 1982. "A General Class of Holt-Winters Type Forecasting Models," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 28(7), pages 808-820, July.
    39. Yanfeng Ouyang & Carlos Daganzo, 2006. "Characterization of the Bullwhip Effect in Linear, Time-Invariant Supply Chains: Some Formulae and Tests," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 52(10), pages 1544-1556, October.
    40. John D. Sterman, 1989. "Modeling Managerial Behavior: Misperceptions of Feedback in a Dynamic Decision Making Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(3), pages 321-339, March.
    41. Willemain, Thomas R. & Smart, Charles N. & Schwarz, Henry F., 2004. "A new approach to forecasting intermittent demand for service parts inventories," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 375-387.
    42. Goodwin, Paul, 2000. "Improving the voluntary integration of statistical forecasts and judgment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 85-99.
    43. Makridakis, Spyros & Hibon, Michele, 2000. "The M3-Competition: results, conclusions and implications," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 451-476.
    44. Dejonckheere, J. & Disney, S. M. & Lambrecht, M. R. & Towill, D. R., 2003. "Measuring and avoiding the bullwhip effect: A control theoretic approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 567-590, June.
    45. Syntetos, Aris A. & Boylan, John E., 2006. "Comments on the attribution of an intermittent demand estimator," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 201-201.
    46. Chen, Huijing & Boylan, John E., 2008. "Empirical evidence on individual, group and shrinkage seasonal indices," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 525-534.
    47. R Fildes & K Nikolopoulos & S F Crone & A A Syntetos, 2008. "Forecasting and operational research: a review," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1150-1172, September.
    48. Das, Chandrasekhar & Tyagi, Rajesh, 1997. "Role of inventory and transportation costs in determining the optimal degree of centralization," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 171-179, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. R Fildes & K Nikolopoulos & S F Crone & A A Syntetos, 2008. "Forecasting and operational research: a review," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1150-1172, September.
    2. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    3. Gardner, Everette Jr., 2006. "Exponential smoothing: The state of the art--Part II," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 637-666.
    4. Babai, Zied & Boylan, John E. & Kolassa, Stephan & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos, 2016. "Supply chain forecasting: Theory, practice, their gap and the futureAuthor-Name: Syntetos, Aris A," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 252(1), pages 1-26.
    5. Pennings, Clint L.P. & van Dalen, Jan & van der Laan, Erwin A., 2017. "Exploiting elapsed time for managing intermittent demand for spare parts," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 258(3), pages 958-969.
    6. Li, Qinyun & Disney, Stephen M. & Gaalman, Gerard, 2014. "Avoiding the bullwhip effect using Damped Trend forecasting and the Order-Up-To replenishment policy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 3-16.
    7. Syntetos, Aris A. & Zied Babai, M. & Gardner, Everette S., 2015. "Forecasting intermittent inventory demands: simple parametric methods vs. bootstrapping," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1746-1752.
    8. Leitner, Johannes & Leopold-Wildburger, Ulrike, 2011. "Experiments on forecasting behavior with several sources of information - A review of the literature," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 213(3), pages 459-469, September.
    9. Babai, M.Z. & Ali, M.M. & Boylan, J.E. & Syntetos, A.A., 2013. "Forecasting and inventory performance in a two-stage supply chain with ARIMA(0,1,1) demand: Theory and empirical analysis," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(2), pages 463-471.
    10. Pinçe, Çerağ & Turrini, Laura & Meissner, Joern, 2021. "Intermittent demand forecasting for spare parts: A Critical review," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 105(C).
    11. Teunter, Ruud H. & Syntetos, Aris A. & Zied Babai, M., 2011. "Intermittent demand: Linking forecasting to inventory obsolescence," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 214(3), pages 606-615, November.
    12. Song, Haiyan & Gao, Bastian Z. & Lin, Vera S., 2013. "Combining statistical and judgmental forecasts via a web-based tourism demand forecasting system," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 295-310.
    13. Hu, Qiwei & Boylan, John E. & Chen, Huijing & Labib, Ashraf, 2018. "OR in spare parts management: A review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 266(2), pages 395-414.
    14. Perera, H. Niles & Hurley, Jason & Fahimnia, Behnam & Reisi, Mohsen, 2019. "The human factor in supply chain forecasting: A systematic review," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 274(2), pages 574-600.
    15. Eksoz, Can & Mansouri, S. Afshin & Bourlakis, Michael, 2014. "Collaborative forecasting in the food supply chain: A conceptual framework," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 120-135.
    16. Bacchetti, Andrea & Saccani, Nicola, 2012. "Spare parts classification and demand forecasting for stock control: Investigating the gap between research and practice," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 722-737.
    17. Snyder, Ralph D. & Ord, J. Keith & Beaumont, Adrian, 2012. "Forecasting the intermittent demand for slow-moving inventories: A modelling approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 485-496.
    18. Arvan, Meysam & Fahimnia, Behnam & Reisi, Mohsen & Siemsen, Enno, 2019. "Integrating human judgement into quantitative forecasting methods: A review," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 237-252.
    19. Zhu, Sha & Dekker, Rommert & van Jaarsveld, Willem & Renjie, Rex Wang & Koning, Alex J., 2017. "An improved method for forecasting spare parts demand using extreme value theory," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 261(1), pages 169-181.
    20. Ferbar Tratar, Liljana, 2015. "Forecasting method for noisy demand," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 64-73.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:jorsoc:v:60:y:2009:i:1:d:10.1057_jors.2008.173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.