Forecasting by temporal aggregation is the process of aggregating demands from higher-frequency to lower-frequency time buckets Ð for example, aggregating daily data to weekly Ð and using the aggregate time series to generate forecasts. This intuitively appealing approach will almost always reduce demand uncertainty. Still, the benefits of temporal aggregation may not be well understood by managers, which may make implementation a harder sell, and the necessary software applications are not adequately supported in commercial forecasting packages Ð at least, not yet. In this foundational article, Aris describes the approaches to temporal aggregation and summarizes the benefits and challenges faced in implementation. Copyright International Institute of Forecasters, 2014
