Title: Agility-oriented logistics demand forecasting for answering dynamic factors in uncertain supply chain environment

Authors: Xin Miao, Bao Xi, Hui-Min Zou

Addresses: School of Management, National Center of Technology, Policy and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. ' School of Management, National Center of Technology, Policy and Management, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. ' Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to study the agility-oriented quantitative forecasting method for managing the dynamic and uncertain factors in supply chains. Firstly, the meaning of supply chain agility was discussed. Then, the significance of agility-oriented forecasting was expounded. In order to enhance the efficiency and precision of the agility-oriented forecasting, artificial neural network with extended Kalman filter training was applied as the forecasting algorithm. Some dynamic influencing factors, such as weather, temperature and date type, are quantified and taken into consideration. Swarm-aided case study on the KFC restaurant, which is located in the Xidazhi Street of Harbin city, showed that the proposed method has practicality and reliability in agility-oriented forecasting. This research may bring some insights to quantificational expression of dynamic factors in uncertain environment and can be seen as an experiment for managing the supply chain uncertainty through agility paradigm.

Keywords: logistics; demand forecasting; dynamic factors; agility; supply chain uncertainty; ANN; artificial neural networks; extended Kalman filter; swarm algorithms; agile supply chains; supply chain management; SCM; KFC Restaurants.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2008.021210

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2008 Vol.3 No.3/4, pp.216 - 227

Published online: 11 Nov 2008 *

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