Evaluation of hierarchical forecasting for substitutable products Online publication date: Sun, 24-Feb-2008
by S. Viswanathan, Handik Widiarta, R. Piplani
International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM), Vol. 4, No. 3, 2008
Abstract: This paper addresses hierarchical forecasting in a production planning environment. Specifically, we examine the relative effectiveness of Top-Down (TD) and Bottom-Up (BU) strategies for forecasting the demand for a substitutable product (which belongs to a family) as well as the demand for the product family under different types of family demand processes. Through a simulation study, it is revealed that the TD strategy consistently outperforms the BU strategy for forecasting product family demand. The relative superiority of the TD strategy further improves by as much as 52% as the product demand variability increases and the degree of substitutability between the products decreases. This phenomenon, however, is not always true for forecasting the demand for the products within the family. In this case, it is found that there are a few situations wherein the BU strategy marginally outperforms the TD strategy, especially when the product demand variability is high and the degree of product substitutability is low.
Existing subscribers:
Go to Inderscience Online Journals to access the Full Text of this article.
If you are not a subscriber and you just want to read the full contents of this article, buy online access here.Complimentary Subscribers, Editors or Members of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Services and Operations Management (IJSOM):
Login with your Inderscience username and password:
Want to subscribe?
A subscription gives you complete access to all articles in the current issue, as well as to all articles in the previous three years (where applicable). See our Orders page to subscribe.
If you still need assistance, please email subs@inderscience.com
Our Blog 
Follow us on Twitter 
Visit us on Facebook