The HNE health palliative care data project

The Hunter New England (HNE) Palliative Care Program recently engaged the Australian Health Services Research Institute, University of Wollongong to undertake a relatively small scale project to explore the similarities and differences between palliative care services that operate within the region. In part, the project was commissioned out of an acknowledgement of the diverse range of current practices and the need to better understand the impact of those from a planning and service delivery perspective

Research into forecasting practice

Continuing our discussions in recent issues of the need for better connections between academic research in forecasting and business needs and practices, Robert Fildes, a founder of the International Institute of Forecasters in 1980 and founding director of the Lancaster Centre for Forecasting in the UK, has taken a close look at the publications in forecasting journals, finding a troubling deficiency of research for improving supply chain management. The fix isn't easy and requires much better collaboration among researchers, businesses, and software vendors

Do ‘big losses’ in judgmental adjustments to statistical forecasts affect experts’ behaviour?

The behaviour of poker players and sports gamblers has been shown to change after winning or losing a significant amount of money on a single hand. In this paper, we explore whether there are changes in experts’ behaviour when performing judgmental adjustments to statistical forecasts and, in particular, examine the impact of ‘big losses’. We define a big loss as a judgmental adjustment that significantly decreases the forecasting accuracy compared to the baseline statistical forecast. In essence, big losses are directly linked with wrong direction or highly overshooting judgmental overrides. Using relevant behavioural theories, we empirically examine the effect of such big losses on subsequent judgmental adjustments exploiting a large multinational data set containing statistical forecasts of demand for pharmaceutical products, expert adjustments and actual sales. We then discuss the implications of our findings for the effective design of forecasting support systems, focusing on the aspects of guidance and restrictiveness

Use and misuse of information in supply chain forecasting of promotion events

Demand forecasting is a critical component of sales and operations planning (S&OP) and is pivotal in supporting inventory and production planning in supply chains. Because of their relative infrequency the effects of sales promotions can be particularly difficult to forecast - yet these are events where production and inventory planners need clear guidance on the probable uplifts in demand. A widely-documented practice involves judgmentally adjusting a baseline statistical forecast on receipt of shared information from sales, marketing and logistics. However, much of this information will either have no predictive value in estimating demand uplift resulting from the promotion or its predictive diagnosticity will be unknown. Theoretical arguments on ‘system neglect’ and ‘base rate discounting’ suggest that the provision of information with no or unknown diagnosticity would lead to the forecasters being distracted from the underlying base-rate uplift with deleterious effects on forecast accuracy. This study investigates this possibility when forecasters made judgmental adjustments to forecasts via a forecasting support system (FSS) in advance of forthcoming sales promotions. In experiments forecasters were provided with the mean rate of sales uplift achieved through promotions (the base rate), and a baseline statistical forecast, together with both quantitative and qualitative information relating to a range of products that were due to be promoted. The results revealed that forecasters were distracted from the base rate, misinterpreting the diverse information available to them, and this led to underestimates of the uplift achieved by the promotions. By extending earlier findings from field observation to a representative experimental setting, these findings have important implications for the quality of inventory decisions, for the design of organizational S&OP processes, and for the implementation of the FSSs that such processes rely on

How to Improve Forecast Quality:A New Survey

Robert and Fotios discuss the results of their important new survey on the key elements for improving the quality of the forecasting function. A lot more is involved here than software and statistical methodology; it’s also about removing organizational impediments, developing appropriate performance benchmarks and motivational incentives, and improving data reliability and flow within the organization

Retail forecasting: research and practice

This paper first introduces the forecasting problems faced by large retailers, from the strategic to the operational, from the store to the competing channels of distribution as sales are aggregated over products to brands to categories and to the company overall. Aggregated forecasting that supports strategic decisions is discussed on three levels: the aggregate retail sales in a market, in a chain, and in a store. Product level forecasts usually relate to operational decisions where the hierarchy of sales data across time, product and the supply chain is examined. Various characteristics and the influential factors which affect product level retail sales are discussed. The data rich environment at lower product hierarchies makes data pooling an often appropriate strategy to improve forecasts, but success depends on the data characteristics and common factors influencing sales and potential demand. Marketing mix and promotions pose an important challenge, both to the researcher and the practicing forecaster. Online review information too adds further complexity so that forecasters potentially face a dimensionality problem of too many variables and too little data. The paper goes on to examine evidence on the alternative methods used to forecast product sales and their comparative forecasting accuracy. Many of the complex methods proposed have provided very little evidence to convince as to their value, which poses further research questions. In contrast, some ambitious econometric methods have been shown to outperform all the simpler alternatives including those used in practice. New product forecasting methods are examined separately where limited evidence is available as to how effective the various approaches are. The paper concludes with some evidence describing company forecasting practice, offering conclusions as to the research gaps but also the barriers to improved practice

Demand forecasting with user-generated online information

Recently, there has been substantial research on augmenting aggregate forecasts with individual consumer data from internet platforms, such as search traffic or social network shares. Although the majority of studies report increased accuracy, many exhibit design weaknesses including lack of adequate benchmarks or rigorous evaluation. Furthermore, their usefulness over the product life-cycle has not been investigated, which may change, as initially, consumers may search for pre-purchase information, but later for after-sales support. In this study, we first review the relevant literature and then attempt to support the key findings using two forecasting case studies. Our findings are in stark contrast to the literature, and we find that established univariate forecasting benchmarks, such as exponential smoothing, consistently perform better than when online information is included. Our research underlines the need for thorough forecast evaluation and argues that online platform data may be of limited use for supporting operational decisions

Mothers construct fathers: Destabilized patriarchy in La Leche League

This paper examines changing masculine ideals from the point of view of women homemakers through a case study of La Leche League, a maternalist organization dedicated to breastfeeding and mother primacy. We suggest two reasons for studying the League: first, an emerging literature suggests that changing norms are seeping into many such seemingly conservative groups, and second, the League continues to be highly successful among white, middle-class, married women. The paper looks at two aspects of masculinity, examining changes in the League through fieldwork, interviews, and content analysis, and finds that new norms of increased father involvement and decreased rights over women's bodies have both influenced League philosophy. We conclude that while in some respects a measure of the decline of men's patriarchal privileges, the League's changes also may contribute to a “restabilization” of male dominance in a modified, partial form.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43548/1/11133_2004_Article_BF00990071.pd

Adding 6 months of androgen deprivation therapy to postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer: a comparison of short-course versus no androgen deprivation therapy in the RADICALS-HD randomised controlled trial

Background Previous evidence indicates that adjuvant, short-course androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) improves metastasis-free survival when given with primary radiotherapy for intermediate-risk and high-risk localised prostate cancer. However, the value of ADT with postoperative radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy is unclear. Methods RADICALS-HD was an international randomised controlled trial to test the efficacy of ADT used in combination with postoperative radiotherapy for prostate cancer. Key eligibility criteria were indication for radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy for prostate cancer, prostate-specific antigen less than 5 ng/mL, absence of metastatic disease, and written consent. Participants were randomly assigned (1:1) to radiotherapy alone (no ADT) or radiotherapy with 6 months of ADT (short-course ADT), using monthly subcutaneous gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogue injections, daily oral bicalutamide monotherapy 150 mg, or monthly subcutaneous degarelix. Randomisation was done centrally through minimisation with a random element, stratified by Gleason score, positive margins, radiotherapy timing, planned radiotherapy schedule, and planned type of ADT, in a computerised system. The allocated treatment was not masked. The primary outcome measure was metastasis-free survival, defined as distant metastasis arising from prostate cancer or death from any cause. Standard survival analysis methods were used, accounting for randomisation stratification factors. The trial had 80% power with two-sided α of 5% to detect an absolute increase in 10-year metastasis-free survival from 80% to 86% (hazard ratio [HR] 0·67). Analyses followed the intention-to-treat principle. The trial is registered with the ISRCTN registry, ISRCTN40814031, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT00541047. Findings Between Nov 22, 2007, and June 29, 2015, 1480 patients (median age 66 years [IQR 61–69]) were randomly assigned to receive no ADT (n=737) or short-course ADT (n=743) in addition to postoperative radiotherapy at 121 centres in Canada, Denmark, Ireland, and the UK. With a median follow-up of 9·0 years (IQR 7·1–10·1), metastasis-free survival events were reported for 268 participants (142 in the no ADT group and 126 in the short-course ADT group; HR 0·886 [95% CI 0·688–1·140], p=0·35). 10-year metastasis-free survival was 79·2% (95% CI 75·4–82·5) in the no ADT group and 80·4% (76·6–83·6) in the short-course ADT group. Toxicity of grade 3 or higher was reported for 121 (17%) of 737 participants in the no ADT group and 100 (14%) of 743 in the short-course ADT group (p=0·15), with no treatment-related deaths. Interpretation Metastatic disease is uncommon following postoperative bed radiotherapy after radical prostatectomy. Adding 6 months of ADT to this radiotherapy did not improve metastasis-free survival compared with no ADT. These findings do not support the use of short-course ADT with postoperative radiotherapy in this patient population