Companies launch initiatives to upgrade or improve their sales & operations planning and demand planning processes all the time, but many fail to deliver the results they should. Has your forecasting operation fallen short of expectations? Do you struggle with "best practices" that seem incapable of producing accurate, useful results?
Announcing New Book by Charlie Chase: Next-Generation Demand Management My colleague Charlie Chase has just published his latest book, Next-Generation Demand Management. It is available August 29, and can be pre-ordered now on amazon.com. It will also be available for purchase at the SAS Bookstore, along with Charlie's other books:
For the fourteenth year, the International Institute of Forecasters, in collaboration with SAS®, is proud to announce financial support for research on how to improve forecasting methods and business forecasting practice. The award for the 2016-2017 year will be two $5,000 grants, in Business Applications and Methodology. Criteria for the
There was this very embarrassing day around year six of my career as a statistician working in clinical trials. I had a small group of interns working on a project that combined data from multiple clinical trials. The goal was to better understand sources of variation in the common control
If you have taken a SAS Deployment exam in the past 9-12 months, you may have wondered why there are pre-test test questions. While it might seem like I am providing warmer-upper questions out of the goodness of my heart, these pre-test tests are actually called candidate surveys. Their purpose?
In my last blog post, I introduced common concerns I’ve heard about predictive analytics in child well-being efforts. In this post, I want to address those concerns and reassure leaders and advocates that predictive analytics can be a tremendous boon to our ability to help kids and ease the burden on
As state and local government leaders and community advocates explore how predictive analytics can improve child well-being outcomes, many questions and potential concerns surface. It is critical to understand that government youth services agencies across the United States have used actuarial Risk & Need Assessment tools for many years. Many
Tax fraud doesn’t just steal money from taxpayers, it can strip people of their livelihoods and reputations. When a manager in a tax agency’s property tax division stole nearly $50M in property tax refunds, the media and external auditors asked: “How did no one notice this?” The woman started small,
With tax week quickly approaching, tax agencies have been issuing press releases alerting the public they’re holding tax refunds for review longer than in years past. This is a departure for tax agencies. Tax agencies have traditionally lived and died by refund cycle time. Refund cycle time, or getting refunds
Al momento de redactar este articulo recordé una nota que describe el actual entorno en las organizaciones bancarias, de gobierno, aseguradoras y salud citada del Profesor David J Hand en su libro titulado "Fraud Analytics Using Descriptive, Predictive, and Social Network Techniques", "Fraud will always be with us". Esta línea
“What keeps you awake at night?” my colleague asked me. At the time, I was a child protective services administrator responsible for thousands of at risk children on any given day. While there were many things that weighed on my mind, worker turnover created many sleepless nights, and days filled
Imagine trying to make the right decision for a child in protective custody if your information was limited only to what was reported to your department about a single incident. Without additional information about the child’s home environment, health and education, criminal background of adults in the child’s life, and
We have all been there. You are face to face with a test question. You stare at the page or screen, your mind is racing, your eyes scanning the question and then the answer options and then the question again. Your brain is straining to recall the information. Time is ticking. Frustrated at
Government organizations are seeking new and innovative ways to use an abundance of data – both internally for government operations and externally to provide the public with greater access to information. This intersection of open and internal government data is the topic of a Route Fifty webinar taking place on
Barbarians are relentless, and they are inside the gates! That didn't go well for the Romans, and they had the most advanced technologies of their day. So how do we do better against the relentless waves of cyber barbarians attacking virtually everywhere? The answer to that is analytics, which offers early
Identity quizzes are a hot topic among fraud fighters, and particularly so among tax administrators. A quick web search finds that a lot of state tax agencies use quizzes to fight refund fraud, including Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio. Even the IRS has gotten into the game. In reading the press
Last week I had the pleasure of attending (with six of my SAS colleagues) the IBF's Best Practices Forecasting Conference in Orlando. Some of the highlights: Charlie Chase and I were interviewed by Russell Goodman of SupplyChainBrain.com. The videos will be posted on SCB's website later this year. Meantime, enjoy
So you think you know how to forecast? Now is your chance to prove it, by participating in a probabilistic load forecasting competition run by my friend (and former SAS colleague), Dr. Tao Hong. Currently a professor at UNC Charlotte and director of the Big Data Energy Analytics Laboratory (BigDEAL),
I moved to Australia from Belgium two months ago for a short-term assignment. I am very concerned by the exchange rate. My dollars have lost over 15% of their value in euros and I share my frustration around me. People tell me, "Just wait, it cannot stay so low, the
New York City is a pioneer in use of technology in many ways. For instance, the work of the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics has been cited repeatedly as an example of smart city innovation. But the innovation doesn’t stop there. Two projects that used SAS data visualization and data
Since our last VirtualOil update in May, oil prices have continued to take a beating. As the chart of the rolling five-year portfolio shows, much of our strip of options is now out-of-the-money and the average value per barrel of that optionality has sunk below $7. No surprise then that
You may not be in London on October 7 to take advantage of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting's free workshop on promotional forecasting. However, there are still plenty of forecasting educational opportunities coming up this fall: SAS Business Knowledge Series Best Practices in Demand-Driven Forecasting (Chicago, September 24-25) My colleague
Our friends at the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting have announced their next free practitioner workshop. It will be held Wednesday October 7,1:00-5:15pm, at BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H. This session's top is: Promotional Modelling and Forecasting Understanding and forecasting the effects of a promotion for both retailers and manufacturers
Dust off that old aphorism about an ounce of prevention. Oil companies applying analytics for predictive maintenance can see a substantial downtick in the unanticipated equipment repairs that quickly eat into an oil well’s profitability. Maintenance is far from a trivial concern in the oilfield. A pumping oil well is
Love them or hate them, value-added models (VAMs) have changed the way we look at education today. VAMs have reshaped our thinking about the effectiveness of programs, schools, educators and colleges that prepare them. While VAMs have been used in the social sciences for decades, we can credit a few
SAS/IIF Grant to Promote Research on Forecasting For the thirteenth year, the International Institute of Forecasters, in collaboration with SAS, is proud to announce financial support for research on how to improve forecasting methods and business forecasting practice. The award for the 2015-2016 year will be (2) $5,000 grants. The
I remember when I first started in public child welfare 21 years ago and the word "outcomes" was introduced. At that time, we believed that if it felt good and children and families seemed happy that we were doing a good job - those were our outcomes. We were wrong.
This month we take a fresh analytical view of our hypothetical VirtualOil portfolio by comparing the forward price of WTI (the green line) to the prompt month price (red line). The resulting graphic (chart 1) demonstrates the relative stability of the 48-month forward price in contrast to a very active spot
A proof of concept (POC) is smartest way for customers to evaluate if a product meets the required objectives, and the best way for vendors to demonstrate why they feel they are best placed to resolve the current outstanding problems. However, not all POCs are successful. Let’s explore why. What is
In 1988 President Ronald Reagan proclaimed May as National Foster Care Month as a way to recognize foster parents for opening their homes to and caring for children in need. This annual celebration has grown to generate awareness of foster care and a recognition of all involved. The children, foster
