About Graphing Trends
CCH Tagetik Supply Chain Planning examines your historical data and attempts to remove randomness (also called noise) from the underlying trends. The trends generally consist of some combination of the following characteristics:
Graphing Trends
| Characteristic | Description |
|---|---|
| Level | A forecast consisting of only one level looks like a flat line going forward in time. This is the simplest forecast and one that requires little historical data. |
| Slope | For CCH Tagetik Supply Chain Planning to include a slope characteristic in its forecasts, you must have enough historical data for the system to determine that it is highly likely that a slope exists. You may find cases where your data appears to have an increasing or decreasing trend, but CCH Tagetik Supply Chain Planning does not include a slope. In these cases, the Forecast Engine has determined the slope is likely to be an artifact of noise in the data rather than a reliable trend. |
| Pattern | Patterns are usually the result of seasonality or cyclical behavior. For example, you may see a spike in orders in a particular month of the year, or in the first month of every quarter. For the Forecast Engine to identify patterns, you need at least 3 periods of data. For an annual cycle, you need at least 36 monthly data points (3 times, 12 months per year). |
| Decay | Decay is a type of pattern. While most patterns repeat, decay generally reflects a decreasing growth rate common in product lifecycles. |
The forecast below includes a level (just below 10,000).
Forecast Graph - Level
The forecast below includes both a level and slope to reflect a linear increase in sales over time.
Forecast Graph - Linear Increase
The forecast below includes level, slope, and pattern components.
Forecast Graph - Level, Slope, and Pattern Components
The forecast below includes level, slope, and decay components.
Forecast Graph - Level, Slope, and Decay Components
Different forecasting methods are used to create forecasts with different trend characteristics. CCH Tagetik Supply Chain Planning automatically examines your data to determine which characteristics and methods are best at modeling these characteristics.