Demand Forecast

A Demand Forecast (also Future Demand Forecast and Future Demand Projection) is a forecast of how much of a particular product (e.g. potable water) or how many of a particular item (e.g. kindergartens) will be required at some future date.

International Infrastructure Management Manual

Section 2.3.3 of the International Infrastructure Management Manual discusses developing demand forecasts, but doesn't specifically define the term. Asset Management Plans based on the International Infrastructure Management Manual typically include a Demand Forecast in a section of the plan titled "Future Demand".

The manual also notes that their are various ways of forecasting demand depending on the 'demand forecasting maturity' of the organisation in question:

  1. based on experienced staff predictions, with consideration of known past demands trends and likely future growth patterns;
  2. based on a projection of a primary demand factor (e.g. population growth) and extrapolation of historic trends;
  3. based on mathematical analysis of past trends and primary demand factors;
  4. based on mathematical analysis of past trends and primary demand factors with a risk assessment applied to different demand scenarios with mitigation actions identified.

Current Practice

A perusal of published asset management plans shows that a common assumption is that demand is directly related to population, and the most common component of a demand forecast is a population projection. Other information that is often included in a demand forecast includes:

  • Factors influencing demand
  • Projected growth or decline of demands on services
  • Anticipated changes in demand on asset utilisation
  • The impact of changes in demand on asset utilisation

Factors Influencing Demand

Factors influencing demand may include:

Wikipedia

Wikipedia lists the following demand forecasting methodologies:

  • Unaided judgment
  • Prediction market
  • Delphi technique
  • Game theory
  • Judgmental bootstrapping
  • Simulated interaction
  • Intentions and expectations surveys
  • Conjoint analysis
  • Jury of executive method
  • Discrete Event Simulation
  • Extrapolation
  • GMDH
  • Reference class forecasting
  • Quantitative analogies
  • Rule-based forecasting
  • Neural networks
  • Data mining
  • Causal models
  • Segmentation

Related Pages

Contributors

The following site members have contributed to this page:

External Links & References

  1. Wikipedia
  2. Google Search (Demand Forecast)
  3. IPWEA Demand Forecasts Discussion
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