Better Business Decisions from Data

CHAPTER 18

Forecasting from Known Distributions

Why Does the Phone Never Stop Ringing?

The normal distribution has featured prominently in previous chapters because it is found to appropriately describe the data obtained in numerous situations. If there is good reason to believe in advance that the normal distribution will apply, then predictions can be made regarding future observations. Many other distributions are found to apply in certain circumstances, and, in a similar way, these can provide useful estimates of future outcomes. This chapter describes several of the commonly used distributions and gives examples of their use in forecasting.

Uniform Distribution

Forecasting from a uniform distribution is a trivial procedure, but it is worth ...