Evangelos Spiliotis is a Research Fellow at the Forecasting and Strategy Unit, National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He co-organised the M4 and M5 Forecasting Competitions and is an organiser of the M6 competition.

Evangelos talks about his research directions, highlighting the role of machine learning algorithms in time series forecasting within current business processes. He also discusses the M competitions which have been organized by Professor Spyros Makridakis and Evangelos for the last several years. The M6 competition, a competition on forecasts of stock price (returns) and risk, is live now and will be finalised in February 2023.

Evangelos recommends Forecasting: Principles and Practice (3rd ed) by Rob J Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos and Practical Time Series Forecasting with R: A Hands-On Guide by Galit Shmueli and Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr.

He also recommends the following papers: Forecasting: Theory and Practice by Petropoulos et al., Retail forecasting: Research and Practice by Fildes, Ma and Kolassa, and the special International Journal of Forecasting issues on the M competitions. 

Our next guest is Paul Goodwin, Emeritus Professor at the University of Bath, United Kingdom.

Paul is a fantastic speaker, well-known for his research in judgemental forecasting, and author of numerous books. This conversation developed into several exciting tracks. We discussed uncertainty and human perception, a combination of statistical models (especially in spreadsheets) and judgments, and their use in the current forecasting software.

Paul recommends Principles of Business Forecasting by Keith Ord, Robert Fildes and Nikolaos Kourentzes. 

This episode’s guest is Elaine Deschamps, Executive Director of the Washington State Caseload Forecast Council, an independent state agency. Elaine has spent 25 years in public service, previously as Senior Fiscal Analyst for the Washington State Senate Ways and Means Committee, in charge of the low-income health care and public health budgets.

Elaine explains how public service forecasting works and the role of judgment and scenario planning in policy settings. Also, we talk a bit about a “new normal” in the Covid era and the challenges it imposes on forecasters.

Elaine recommends “Foresight” Guidebooks, especially “Improving Your Forecasting Process”, “Forecasting Methods Tutorials”, and “Forecast Accuracy Measurement: Pitfalls to Avoid and Practices to Adopt”.

Our next guests are John Boylan, Professor and Director of Centre for Marketing Analytics and Forecasting (CMAF) at Lancaster University (UK), and Aris Syntetos, Professor of Operational Research and Operations Management at Cardiff University.

John and Aris have recently published a book titled “Intermittent Demand Forecasting: Context, Methods and Applications”, a book aimed at practitioners and early career researchers which summarises everything known about intermittent demand forecasting up to date. In this episode, we introduce this book and then talk about good practices for research and industry collaborations.

John recommends “Inventory and Production Management in Supply Chains” by E. Silver, D. Pyke, D. Thomas, and Aris talks about “Statistical forecasting for inventory control” and “Smoothing, Forecasting and Prediction of Discrete Time Series” by Robert Goodell Brown.

This episode’s guest is Dr. Anne Robinson, Chief Strategy Officer at Kinaxis. Anne is a thought leader in the field of analytics and digital transformation, with expertise in operations, supply chain and strategy.

In this episode, Anne talks about her career path from academia to the customer and software vendor experience. We also discuss the role of trust and analytical and soft skills that are key to success in the field. What are the crucial components of agile planning, forecasting and supply chain management? Anne shares her vision and ideas, enjoy!

Our next guest is Feng Li, Associate Professor of Statistics in the School of Statistics and Mathematics at Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing, China.  
 
In this episode, he describes the current status of forecasting science and practice in China, his research focus, and his lab KLLAB, where he and his wife Dr Yanfei Kang are focused on computing, forecasting and learning with massive machines. We also discussed in depth one of his papers entitled "Time series forecasting with imaging". 

Our next guest is Professor Nada Sanders, Distinguished Professor in Supply Chain Management at Northeastern University, US. She has written several books (e.g., “Big Data Driven Supply Chain Management” (Pearson), “Foundations of Sustainable Business”, “Forecasting Fundamentals”), her latest publication is “The Humachine: Humankind, Machines, and the Future of Enterprise”.

In this episode, Nada emphasizes the important role of humans in decision-making and predictions. Despite humans’ fallacies and biases, we bring valuable contextual information into analytics. While there are many open questions about the use of human judgment in forecasting, another level of complexity is arising—the use of algorithms and support systems. Nada also encourages academics and practitioners to work together, especially given the global problems in supply chain and forecasting that have arisen with the COVID pandemic.

Nada recommends “Judgment and Choice” by Robin Hogarth and the collective body of papers by Robert Fildes and Paul Goodwin.

This episode’s guest is Pierre Pinson, Professor of Operations Research at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Department of Technology, Management and Economics (Management Science division), and Editor-in-Chief for the International Journal of Forecasting.

In this episode, we talk about weather forecasting and communicating uncertainty to a broader audience. Following the current trends, we discuss energy consumption and the possibility of using renewables across the world. Pierre also shares his experience being Editor-in-Chief of the IJF and his views on the future of forecasting.

Pierre recommends Forecasting: Principles and Practice (3rd ed) by Rob J Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos, and also the paper “Computing and graphing highest density regions” by Rob Hyndman.

In this episode, we had the honour to host Dr. Bahman Rostami-Tabar from Cardiff University.

Bahman is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Management Science at Cardiff Business School. His research focuses on forecasting, modelling and its link to decision making, particularly in forecasting for social good. He is the organizer of the Forecasting for Social Good workshops which investigate how and where forecasting can be used to create societal impact. He is also the organiser of the Democratising Forecasting workshops, an initiative sponsored by the International Institute of Forecasters, which provides forecasting tools in developing countries. In addition, he hosts a book club on forecasting — if you want to improve your forecasting skills, you can join along.

Bahman’s book suggestions include Forecasting: Principles and Practices, by Rob J Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos, and Demand Forecasting for Managers, by Enno Siemsen and Stephan Kolassa.

Our next guest is Michael Gilliland, Product Marketing Manager at SAS, member of the board of directors of the International Institute of Forecasters (IIF) and Associate Editor of Foresight: The International Journal of Applied Forecasting.

In this episode, Mike tells us how he started his career in forecasting and became a part of the IIF. We also discuss ML/AI methods' role in forecasting and the potential problems and challenges. At the end of this talk, Mike gives several recommendations for must-reads.