4 replaced http://stats.stackexchange.com/ with https://stats.stackexchange.com/ edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:44 Plus, daily data will likely be intermittent, in which case you can't use Holt(-Winters) or ARIMA, but should go with Croston's method. This may be helpful.This may be helpful. Intermittent demands are usually harder to forecast. Plus, daily data will likely be intermittent, in which case you can't use Holt(-Winters) or ARIMA, but should go with Croston's method. This may be helpful. Intermittent demands are usually harder to forecast. Plus, daily data will likely be intermittent, in which case you can't use Holt(-Winters) or ARIMA, but should go with Croston's method. This may be helpful. Intermittent demands are usually harder to forecast. 3 added 1023 characters in body edited Dec 4 '14 at 15:22 Stephan Kolassa 52.9k99 gold badges105105 silver badges198198 bronze badges EDIT: How can I do that (get predictions over the last 12 data without considering them in the model) in R? Unfortunately, there is no way to take an ets()-fitted object and update it with a new data point (as in update() for lm()-fitted models). You will need to call ets() twelve times. You could, of course, fit the first model and then re-use the model ets() chose in this first fit for subsequent refits. This model is reported in the components part of the ets() result. For instance, taking the first five years of the USAccDeaths dataset:fit <- ets(ts(USAccDeaths[1:60],start=c(1973,1),frequency=12))  Refit using the same model:refit <- ets(ts(USAccDeaths[1:61],start=c(1973,1),frequency=12), model=paste(fit$components[1:3],collapse=""))  This will make refitting quite a lot faster, but of course the refit may not find the MSE-optimal model any more. Then again, the MSE-optimal model should not change too much if you add just a few more observations. EDIT: How can I do that (get predictions over the last 12 data without considering them in the model) in R? Unfortunately, there is no way to take an ets()-fitted object and update it with a new data point (as in update() for lm()-fitted models). You will need to call ets() twelve times. You could, of course, fit the first model and then re-use the model ets() chose in this first fit for subsequent refits. This model is reported in the components part of the ets() result. For instance, taking the first five years of the USAccDeaths dataset:fit <- ets(ts(USAccDeaths[1:60],start=c(1973,1),frequency=12))  Refit using the same model:refit <- ets(ts(USAccDeaths[1:61],start=c(1973,1),frequency=12), model=paste(fit$components[1:3],collapse=""))  This will make refitting quite a lot faster, but of course the refit may not find the MSE-optimal model any more. Then again, the MSE-optimal model should not change too much if you add just a few more observations. 2 added 1462 characters in body edited Dec 2 '14 at 13:43 Stephan Kolassa 52.9k99 gold badges105105 silver badges198198 bronze badges EDIT: you write that you need to determine safety amounts. Well, now you will actually need to think about your supply chain. Maybe forecasting is not your problem at all - if sales are all 0 or 1 and you can replenish stocks within a day, your best strategy would be to always have 1 unit on hand and replenish that after every sale, forgetting entirely about forecasting. If that is not the case (you write that you have seasonality on an aggregate level), you may need to do something ad-hoc, since I don't think there is anything on seasonal intermittent demand out there. You could aggregate data to get seasonal forecasts, then push those down to the SKU level to get forecasts on that level (e.g., by distributing the aggregate forecasts according to historical proportions), finally get safety amounts by taking quantiles of, e.g., the Poisson distribution. As I said, this is pretty ad-hoc, with little statistical grounding, but it should get you 90% there - and given that forecasting is an inexact science, the last 10% may not be feasible, anyway. Look also at averages of forecasts from different methods - often, such averages yield better forecasts than the component forecasts. EDIT: That is, fit both a Holt-Winters and an auto.arima model, calculate forecasts from both models, and then, for each time bucket in the future, take the average of the two forecasts from the two models. You can do this with even more models, too - averaging seems to work best if the component models are "very different". Essentially, you are reducing the variance of your forecasts. Look also at averages of forecasts from different methods - often, such averages yield better forecasts than the component forecasts. EDIT: you write that you need to determine safety amounts. Well, now you will actually need to think about your supply chain. Maybe forecasting is not your problem at all - if sales are all 0 or 1 and you can replenish stocks within a day, your best strategy would be to always have 1 unit on hand and replenish that after every sale, forgetting entirely about forecasting. If that is not the case (you write that you have seasonality on an aggregate level), you may need to do something ad-hoc, since I don't think there is anything on seasonal intermittent demand out there. You could aggregate data to get seasonal forecasts, then push those down to the SKU level to get forecasts on that level (e.g., by distributing the aggregate forecasts according to historical proportions), finally get safety amounts by taking quantiles of, e.g., the Poisson distribution. As I said, this is pretty ad-hoc, with little statistical grounding, but it should get you 90% there - and given that forecasting is an inexact science, the last 10% may not be feasible, anyway. Look also at averages of forecasts from different methods - often, such averages yield better forecasts than the component forecasts. EDIT: That is, fit both a Holt-Winters and an auto.arima model, calculate forecasts from both models, and then, for each time bucket in the future, take the average of the two forecasts from the two models. You can do this with even more models, too - averaging seems to work best if the component models are "very different". Essentially, you are reducing the variance of your forecasts. 1 answered Dec 1 '14 at 19:52 Stephan Kolassa 52.9k99 gold badges105105 silver badges198198 bronze badges