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Intelligent Sales Prediction for Pharmaceutical Distribution Companies : A Data Mining Based Approach
Joint Authors
Sepehri, Mohammad Mehdi
Farvaresh, Hamid
Khalil Zadeh, Neda
Source
Mathematical Problems in Engineering
Issue
Vol. 2014, Issue 2014 (31 Dec. 2014), pp.1-15, 15 p.
Publisher
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Publication Date
2014-05-12
Country of Publication
Egypt
No. of Pages
15
Main Subjects
Abstract EN
One of the problems of pharmaceutical distribution companies (PDCs) is how to control inventory levels in order to prevent costs of excessive inventory and to prevent losing customers due to drug shortage.
Consequently, the purpose of this study is to propose a novel method to forecast sales of PDCs.
The presented method is a combination of network analysis tools and time series forecasting methods.
Due to lack of enough past sales records of each drug, an explorative network based analysis is conducted to find clique sets and group members and to use comembers’ sales data in their sales prediction.
Afterwards, time series sales forecasting models were built with three different approaches including ARIMA methodology, neural network, and an advanced hybrid neural network approach.
The offered hybrid method by applying each drug and its comembers past records facilitates capturing both linear and nonlinear patterns of sales accurately.
The performance of the proposed method was evaluated by a real dataset provided by one of the leading PDCs in Iran.
The results indicated that the proposed method is able to cope with low number of past records while it forecasts medicines sales accurately.
American Psychological Association (APA)
Khalil Zadeh, Neda& Sepehri, Mohammad Mehdi& Farvaresh, Hamid. 2014. Intelligent Sales Prediction for Pharmaceutical Distribution Companies : A Data Mining Based Approach. Mathematical Problems in Engineering،Vol. 2014, no. 2014, pp.1-15.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-470809
Modern Language Association (MLA)
Khalil Zadeh, Neda…[et al.]. Intelligent Sales Prediction for Pharmaceutical Distribution Companies : A Data Mining Based Approach. Mathematical Problems in Engineering No. 2014 (2014), pp.1-15.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-470809
American Medical Association (AMA)
Khalil Zadeh, Neda& Sepehri, Mohammad Mehdi& Farvaresh, Hamid. Intelligent Sales Prediction for Pharmaceutical Distribution Companies : A Data Mining Based Approach. Mathematical Problems in Engineering. 2014. Vol. 2014, no. 2014, pp.1-15.
https://search.emarefa.net/detail/BIM-470809
Data Type
Journal Articles
Language
English
Notes
Includes bibliographical references
Record ID
BIM-470809