Applicability of the M5 to Forecasting at Walmart

The M5 Forecasting Competition, the fifth in the series of forecasting competitions organized by Professor Spyros Makridakis and the Makridakis Open Forecasting Center at the University of Nicosia, was an extremely successful event. This competition focused on both the accuracy and uncertainty of forecasts and leveraged actual historical sales data provided by Walmart. This has led to the M5 being a unique competition that closely parallels the difficulties and challenges associated with industrial applications of forecasting. Like its precursor the M4, many interesting ideas came from the results of the M5 competition which will continue to push forecasting in new directions.In this article we discuss four topics around the practitioners view of the application of the competition and its results to the actual problems we face. First, we examine the data provided and how it relates to common difficulties practitioners must overcome. Secondly, we review the relevance of the accuracy and uncertainty metrics associated with the competition. Third, we discuss the leading solutions and their implications to forecasting at a company like Walmart. We then close with thoughts about a future M6 competition and further enhancements that can be explored.     

山姆·沃尔顿:帝国缔造者

<正>《财富》杂志1955年开始评选世界500强企业的时候,沃尔玛还不存在。半个世纪后,沃尔玛成为雄踞世界500强榜首的零售业巨头;40年前,沃尔玛还只是美国肯萨斯州一个小镇上的夫妻店。而现在,沃尔玛已经在美国拥有传统连锁店1702家、超市952家、“山姆俱乐部”商店479家、“街区市场”杂货店20家,另外,在其他国家还有1088家连锁店。全公司雇员114 万人,组成了一个威力无比的“沃尔玛帝国”……     

Partnership at work and worker participation: an NHS case study

This article considers issues of workplace union strategy in a study of a National Health Service hospital trust in which the focus of the investigation is the ‘employee voice’ gains, or losses, arising from partnership and worker participation. The impact of government policy on local management and, in turn, employees’ opportunities to participate in organisational decision making is therefore the main theme explored in this analysis.     

RFID--沃尔玛强化核心竞争力的新武器

2003年6月19日,在美国芝加哥召开的“零售业系统展览会”上,沃尔玛宣布将采用一项名为RFID的技术,以最终取代目前广泛使用的条形码,成为第一个公布正式采用该技术时间表的企业。按计划,该公司最大的100个供应商应从2005年1月1日开始在供应的货物包装箱(托盘)上粘贴RFID标签,并逐渐扩大到单件商品。如果供应商们在2008年还达不到这一要求,就可能失去为沃尔玛供货的资格。     

沃尔玛物流配送对我国连锁超市发展的启示

连锁超市由于在降低成本、扩大规模、提高竞争能力等方面的独特优势,已成为超市的主流和方向,而大型连锁超市有别于一般的连锁超市,无论从规模还是经济条件,都更适合借鉴一些大型的国际化连锁超市;通过阐述沃尔玛超市与国内连锁超市的物流配送现状,分析了沃尔玛物流配送的成功关键,提出了一些可借鉴性的经验以解决国内大型连锁超市商品成本高的问题。     

陈耀昌“亮剑”沃尔玛中国

陈耀昌甫一上任就剑指沃尔玛中国最敏感的神经——人事调整。他大刀阔斧地实施精兵简政，力求节约人力资源成本的同时提高效率。人事调整在沃尔玛中国进行得轰轰烈烈，毫不含糊，包括高层换血，也包括瘦身裁员。     

A white-boxed ISSM approach to estimate uncertainty distributions of Walmart sales

We present our solution for the M5 Uncertainty competition. Our solution ranked sixth out of 909 submissions across all hierarchical levels and ranked first for prediction at the finest level of granularity (product-store sales, i.e. SKUs). The model combines a multi-stage state-space model and Monte Carlo simulations to generate the forecasting scenarios (trajectories). Observed sales are modelled with negative binomial distributions to represent discrete over-dispersed sales. Seasonal factors are handcrafted and modelled with linear coefficients that are calculated at the store-department level.     

沃尔玛物流配送对我国连锁超市发展的启示

连锁超市由于在降低成本、扩大规模、提高竞争能力等方面的独特优势,已成为超市的主流和方向,而大型连锁超市有别于一般的连锁超市,无论从规模还是经济条件,都更适合借鉴一些大型的国际化连锁超市;通过阐述沃尔玛超市与国内连锁超市的物流配送现状,分析了沃尔玛物流配送的成功关键,提出了一些可借鉴性的经验以解决国内大型连锁超市商品成本高的问题.     

沃尔玛与中国小商品城经营状态及核心竞争力比较

沃尔玛和中国小商品城同属于商贸流通企业,在流通领域中都做出了不斐的业绩。对两者的经营状态及核心竞争力进行比较,重点分析两者在核心竞争力方面的异同,并在比较分析的基础上,探索我国专业批发市场建设和提升核心竞争力若干有价值的结论和启示。     

银商之争的经济学分析：从沃尔玛诉讼案到中国的罢刷事件

我国商家拒绝银行卡的罢刷行动与沃尔玛等商户集体诉讼Visa和Mastercard案均缘于商户、银行及银行卡组织的非合作博弈引发的利益冲突。本文在简单回顾银商之争历程后,从POS交易利益主体互动关系中剖析了银联组织的自然垄断特性及其造成的双重加价原理,并借鉴沃尔玛诉讼案的经验,基于产业组织理论从银联的结构性规制、银行卡市场的网络效应及价格听证等角度提出银商之争的若干解决思路。     

Claims of employment discrimination and worker voice

Using the U.S. National Study of the Changing Workforce survey, we show that claims of racial and gender discrimination emerge less frequently in workplaces with established worker voice mechanisms. This result accords with the hypothesis that participation enhances perceptions of workplace fairness. We show that while having a supervisor of the same race or gender is associated with reduced discrimination claims, the role of voice tends to be larger when the race or gender of the supervisor is different from that of the worker. This suggests that voice may be particularly important in heterogeneous workplaces.     

Integration of collective bargaining and formal worker participation processes: Boon or barrier to worker rights?

Many employers are extending workplace rights by allowing for more employee voice in decision making. Numerous unionized organizations have established formal worker participation processes to help achieve this end and to improve organizational performance. Based largely on theory, such processes are normally designed to operate independently from the bargaining process. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between participation and bargaining processes, and the effect of this relationship on workplace satisfaction. A total of 712 Midwest union officials were surveyed, and the results indicate that the processes tend to become integrated in the workplace. Further, union officials' workplace satisfaction was greater where formal worker participation is institutionalized within the bargaining process.     

Industrial efficiency and the West German worker

British industrial performance and the attitudes of workers have been unfavourably compared with Germany for more than 100 years. Much has been made of non-militant German workers, implying a deep-rooted psychology which harmonises the interests of workers and employers. This article argues that West German workers are as sceptical of employers' motivations as their British counterparts.     

Network position and health care worker infections

We use a newly collected data set coupled with an agent-based model to study the spread of infectious disease in hospitals. We estimate the average and marginal infections created by various worker groups in a hospital as a function of their network position in order to identify groups most crucial in a hospital-based epidemic. Surprisingly, we find that many groups with primary patient care responsibilities play a small role in spreading an infectious disease within our hospital data set. We also demonstrate that the effect of different network positions can be as important as the effect of different transmission rates for some categories of workers.     

Wages,fringe benefits and worker turnover

Linked employer–employee data from Norway are utilised to study how employers use wages and fringe benefits in managing their workforce. The analysis shows that on average across all establishments, we observe a positive correlation between wages and fringe benefits. This indicates the presence of labour market frictions and thus is not supportive of the classical frictionless hedonic wage model. Higher wages and more fringe benefits reduce the worker turnover rate. Fringe benefits have stronger negative impact on the excess worker turnover rate than indicated by the reported monetary value.     

Exploring the paradox of unionised worker dissatisfaction

This paper explores the apparent paradox that while unions exist to promote the interests and well-being of their members, UK survey evidence consistently shows that union members report lower levels of job satisfaction than non-union workers. A review and further analysis of the evidence confirms that this difference persists after controlling for other factors such as type of work. If union member dissatisfaction reflects a form of voice, then we might expect to see resulting gains. An analysis of data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey indicates that any gains are modest. Evidence is presented to suggest that although management has become less hostile to trade unions, a degree of anti-union sentiment remains, sometimes leading to a muffling of the union voice, and this helps to account for some of the union member dissatisfaction.     

Work‐life balance and the software worker

This article examines the impact of employer flexibility to work‐life issues and negative spillover from work to non‐work life on the attitudes of software developers. Software workers present an interesting case for work‐life balance issues – Ackroyd et al (2000) designate them the key occupation to examine in future studies of ‘knowledge workers’, and Barrett (2001) states that they are the ‘vanguard’ of new working practices, with the separation of work and life being substantially more ‘blurred’ than for more traditional occupations. Despite this general perception of the work‐life boundary, our results show that intrusion of work into private life for this group of workers still has a substantial impact on work‐related attitudes. Work‐life boundary variables affect trust in the organisation which plays a mediational role in these variables' relationship to job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Our results suggest that even within this industry, where employees are relatively individualistic in orientation, highly marketable and unlikely to show attachment to a single organisation, mutual gains for employee and employer can be attained by an accommodating approach to non‐work commitments which may lead to greater organisational attachment.     

Employment protection regimes and dismissal of members in worker cooperatives

In connection with the "Great Reset" literature in management and organizational theory, this article discusses human resource sustainability, employment stability, and layoffs in worker cooperatives, a unique organizational form in which employees are members holding residual control rights. Theoretical and empirical contributions show that worker control stabilizes employment better than investor ownership, opening the door to stronger employment protection. The paper leverages key theoretical insights from evolutionary economics and systems theory to discuss the benefits and critical elements associated with limiting member layoffs in worker cooperatives. While strong employment protection can lead to short-term inefficiencies and underperformance due to labour hoarding, imperfections in governance and control mechanisms, it can foster better accumulation and retention of firm-specific human capital and dynamic capabilities, thereby supporting long-term performance.