The Variance of Lead-Time Demand

Abstract

AbstractMany short-term forecasting systems are based on exponentially weighted moving averages. It is usual to forecast the cumulative demand over a lead time or production horizon, and to describe this forecast in terms of its mean and variance. When the forecast horizon is fixed, the variance is often taken as the product of the number of periods and the variance per period. This is a serious error and typically underestimates the variance by a factor of about two. This paper details the need for a proper awareness of the correction factors.