With the importance of forecasting in businesses, a wide variety of methods and tools has been developed over the years to automate the process of forecasting. However, an unintended consequence of this tremendous advancement is that forecasting has become more and more like a black box function. Thus, a primary goal of this chapter is to provide a clear understanding of forecasting in any application contexts with a systematic procedure for practical forecasting through step-by-step examples. Several methods are presented, and the authors compare results to what were the typical forecasting methods including regression and time series in different software technologies. Three case studies are presented: simple supply forecasting, homicide forecasting, and demand forecasting for sales from Walmart.
