Damped Seasonality Factors: Introduction

Abstract

Historically, seasonal factors have been concerned with estimates of historical data, not with forecasting. The Miller-Williams procedures enable organizations to adjust seasonal factors so as to make more accurate forecasts. This has an immediate payoff to forecasters - they can reduce forecast errors by about four percent. In addition, their papers have paved the way for improvements in the estimation of seasonal factors for forecasting, such as through the use of domain knowledge and analogous series.

Keywords: Forecasting, seasonal factors, forecast accuracy