Human and judgemental factors in collaborative demand forecasting

Summary form only given. So far, human factors in industrial environments have been considered from the safety perspective. However, beyond this specific field, it has been the need to address human factors as an important element impacting decisions in Operations Management. Within this frame, the talk addresses the research status on identifying, modelling and integrating human factors in Operations Management. The talk is supported by results from case studies and current work on the development of demand forecasting techniques. Indeed, we present a collaborative judgemental approach for demand forecasting in which the mathematical forecasts are adjusted by a structured technique that combines knowledge from different forecasters. The approach is based on the identification and classification of four types of judgemental events. Factors corresponding to these events are evaluated through a fuzzy inference system to ensure the coherence and the consistency of the collaborative aspect of the technique.