Forecast Evaluations

This section provides an overview of Forecast Evaluations and discusses:

• MAD

• POA

You can select forecasting methods to generate as many as 12 forecasts for each product. Each forecasting method might create a slightly different projection. When thousands of products are forecast, a subjective decision is impractical regarding which forecast to use in the plans for each product.

The system automatically evaluates performance for each forecasting method that you select and for each product that you forecast. You can select between two performance criteria: MAD and POA. MAD is a measure of forecast error. POA is a measure of forecast bias. Both of these performance evaluation techniques require actual sales history data for a period specified by you. The period of recent history used for evaluation is called a holdout period or period of best fit.

To measure the performance of a forecasting method, the system:

• Uses the forecast formulas to simulate a forecast for the historical holdout period.

• Makes a comparison between the actual sales data and the simulated forecast for the holdout period.

When you select multiple forecast methods, this same process occurs for each method. Multiple forecasts are calculated for the holdout period and compared to the known sales history for that same period. The forecasting method that produces the best match (best fit) between the forecast and the actual sales during the holdout period is recommended for use in the plans. This recommendation is specific to each product and might change each time that you generate a forecast.