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Step-by-step guide on using the TSB Model with Statsforecast.
During this walkthrough, we will become familiar with the main
StatsForecast class and some relevant methods such as
StatsForecast.plot, StatsForecast.forecast and
StatsForecast.cross_validation in other.
The text in this article is largely taken from: 1. Changquan Huang •
Alla Petukhina. Springer series (2022). Applied Time Series Analysis and
Forecasting with
Python. 2.
Ivan Svetunkov. Forecasting and Analytics with the Augmented Dynamic
Adaptive Model (ADAM) 3. James D.
Hamilton. Time Series Analysis Princeton University Press, Princeton,
New Jersey, 1st Edition,
1994.
4. Rob J. Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos (2018). “Forecasting
Principles and Practice (3rd ed)”.
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Teunter-Syntetos-Babai (TSB) model is a model used in the field of
inventory management and demand forecasting in time series. It was
proposed by Teunter, Syntetos, and Babai in 2001 as an extension of
Croston’s demand forecasting model.
The TSB model is specifically used to forecast demand for products with
intermittent demand characteristics, that is, products that experience
periods of demand followed by periods of non-demand. It is designed to
handle time series data with many zeros and variability in the intervals
between non-null observations.
The TSB model is based on two main components: the level model and the
interval model. The level model estimates the level of demand when it
occurs, while the interval model estimates the interval between demand
occurrences. These two components combine to generate accurate forecasts
of future demand.
The TSB model has proven to be effective in intermittent demand
forecasting and has been widely used in various industrial sectors.
However, it is important to note that there are other models and
approaches available for demand forecasting, and the choice of the
appropriate model will depend on the specific characteristics of the
data and the context in which it is applied.
TSB Model
TSB (Teunter, Syntetos and Babai) is a new method proposed in 2011, the
method replace the demand interval by demand probability which is
updated every period. The reason for this is the Croston’s method only
update demand when it occur, however in real life there are plenty of
cases with many zero demands, therefore, the result of forecast will be
unsuitable for estimating the risk of obsolescence because of the
outdated information.
In TSB method, the Dt represent the demand occurrence indicator for
period t, so :
If Dt=0, then
Zt′=Zt−1′
Dt=Dt−1′+β(0−Dt−1′)
Otherwise Zt′=Zt−1′+α(Zt−Zt−2′)
Dt′=Dt−1′+β(1−Dt−1′)
Hence, the forecast is given by
Yt′=Dt′⋅Zt′
Where
- Yt′: Average demand per period
- Zt: Actual demand at period t
- Zt′: Time between two positive demand
- Dt′: Estimate probability of a demand occurrence at the end of
period t
- α,β: Smoothing Constant, 0≤α,β≤1
TSB General Properties
The Teunter-Syntetos-Babai (TSB) model for time series has the following
properties:
-
Intermittent Demand Modelling: The TSB model is specifically
designed to forecast intermittent demand, which is characterized by
periods of non-demand followed by periods of demand. The model
efficiently addresses this characteristic of demand.
-
Level and interval components: The TSB model is based on two main
components: the level model and the interval model. The level model
estimates the level of demand when it occurs, while the interval
model estimates the interval between demand occurrences.
-
Handling data with many zeros: The TSB model can efficiently handle
time series data with many zeros, which are common in intermittent
demand. The model properly considers these zeros in the forecasting
process.
-
Exponential Smoothing: The TSB model uses exponential smoothing
methods to estimate demand levels and intervals between occurrences.
Exponential smoothing is a widely used technique in time series
forecasting.
-
Confidence interval estimation: The TSB model provides confidence
interval estimates for the generated forecasts. This allows having a
measure of the uncertainty associated with forecasts and facilitates
decision making.
-
Simplicity and ease of implementation: The TSB model is relatively
simple and easy to implement compared to other more complex
approaches. It does not require sophisticated assumptions about the
distribution of demand and can be applied in a practical way.
Those are some of the fundamental properties of the
Teunter-Syntetos-Babai model in the context of time series and
intermittent demand forecasting.
Loading libraries and data
Tip
Statsforecast will be needed. To install, see
instructions.
Next, we import plotting libraries and configure the plotting style.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
from statsmodels.graphics.tsaplots import plot_acf, plot_pacf
plt.style.use('grayscale') # fivethirtyeight grayscale classic
plt.rcParams['lines.linewidth'] = 1.5
dark_style = {
'figure.facecolor': '#008080', # #212946
'axes.facecolor': '#008080',
'savefig.facecolor': '#008080',
'axes.grid': True,
'axes.grid.which': 'both',
'axes.spines.left': False,
'axes.spines.right': False,
'axes.spines.top': False,
'axes.spines.bottom': False,
'grid.color': '#000000', #2A3459
'grid.linewidth': '1',
'text.color': '0.9',
'axes.labelcolor': '0.9',
'xtick.color': '0.9',
'ytick.color': '0.9',
'font.size': 12 }
plt.rcParams.update(dark_style)
from pylab import rcParams
rcParams['figure.figsize'] = (18,7)
import pandas as pd
df=pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Naren8520/Serie-de-tiempo-con-Machine-Learning/main/Data/intermittend_demand2")
df.head()
| date | sales |
|---|
| 0 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 | 0 |
| 1 | 2022-01-01 01:00:00 | 10 |
| 2 | 2022-01-01 02:00:00 | 0 |
| 3 | 2022-01-01 03:00:00 | 0 |
| 4 | 2022-01-01 04:00:00 | 100 |
The input to StatsForecast is always a data frame in long format with
three columns: unique_id, ds and y:
-
The
unique_id (string, int or category) represents an identifier
for the series.
-
The
ds (datestamp) column should be of a format expected by
Pandas, ideally YYYY-MM-DD for a date or YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS for a
timestamp.
-
The
y (numeric) represents the measurement we wish to forecast.
df["unique_id"]="1"
df.columns=["ds", "y", "unique_id"]
df.head()
| ds | y | unique_id |
|---|
| 0 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | 2022-01-01 01:00:00 | 10 | 1 |
| 2 | 2022-01-01 02:00:00 | 0 | 1 |
| 3 | 2022-01-01 03:00:00 | 0 | 1 |
| 4 | 2022-01-01 04:00:00 | 100 | 1 |
ds object
y int64
unique_id object
dtype: object
We can see that our time variable (ds) is in an object format, we need
to convert to a date format
df["ds"] = pd.to_datetime(df["ds"])
Explore Data with the plot method
Plot some series using the plot method from the StatsForecast class.
This method prints a random series from the dataset and is useful for
basic EDA.
from statsforecast import StatsForecast
StatsForecast.plot(df)
Autocorrelation plots
Autocorrelation (ACF) and partial autocorrelation (PACF) plots are
statistical tools used to analyze time series. ACF charts show the
correlation between the values of a time series and their lagged values,
while PACF charts show the correlation between the values of a time
series and their lagged values, after the effect of previous lagged
values has been removed.
ACF and PACF charts can be used to identify the structure of a time
series, which can be helpful in choosing a suitable model for the time
series. For example, if the ACF chart shows a repeating peak and valley
pattern, this indicates that the time series is stationary, meaning that
it has the same statistical properties over time. If the PACF chart
shows a pattern of rapidly decreasing spikes, this indicates that the
time series is invertible, meaning it can be reversed to get a
stationary time series.
The importance of the ACF and PACF charts is that they can help analysts
better understand the structure of a time series. This understanding can
be helpful in choosing a suitable model for the time series, which can
improve the ability to predict future values of the time series.
To analyze ACF and PACF charts:
- Look for patterns in charts. Common patterns include repeating peaks
and valleys, sawtooth patterns, and plateau patterns.
- Compare ACF and PACF charts. The PACF chart generally has fewer
spikes than the ACF chart.
- Consider the length of the time series. ACF and PACF charts for
longer time series will have more spikes.
- Use a confidence interval. The ACF and PACF plots also show
confidence intervals for the autocorrelation values. If an
autocorrelation value is outside the confidence interval, it is
likely to be significant.
fig, axs = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=2)
plot_acf(df["y"], lags=30, ax=axs[0],color="fuchsia")
axs[0].set_title("Autocorrelation");
plot_pacf(df["y"], lags=30, ax=axs[1],color="lime")
axs[1].set_title('Partial Autocorrelation')
plt.show();
Decomposition of the time series
How to decompose a time series and why?
In time series analysis to forecast new values, it is very important to
know past data. More formally, we can say that it is very important to
know the patterns that values follow over time. There can be many
reasons that cause our forecast values to fall in the wrong direction.
Basically, a time series consists of four components. The variation of
those components causes the change in the pattern of the time series.
These components are:
- Level: This is the primary value that averages over time.
- Trend: The trend is the value that causes increasing or
decreasing patterns in a time series.
- Seasonality: This is a cyclical event that occurs in a time
series for a short time and causes short-term increasing or
decreasing patterns in a time series.
- Residual/Noise: These are the random variations in the time
series.
Combining these components over time leads to the formation of a time
series. Most time series consist of level and noise/residual and trend
or seasonality are optional values.
If seasonality and trend are part of the time series, then there will be
effects on the forecast value. As the pattern of the forecasted time
series may be different from the previous time series.
The combination of the components in time series can be of two types: *
Additive * Multiplicative
Additive time series
If the components of the time series are added to make the time series.
Then the time series is called the additive time series. By
visualization, we can say that the time series is additive if the
increasing or decreasing pattern of the time series is similar
throughout the series. The mathematical function of any additive time
series can be represented by:
y(t)=level+Trend+seasonality+noise
Multiplicative time series
If the components of the time series are multiplicative together, then
the time series is called a multiplicative time series. For
visualization, if the time series is having exponential growth or
decline with time, then the time series can be considered as the
multiplicative time series. The mathematical function of the
multiplicative time series can be represented as.
y(t)=Level∗Trend∗seasonality∗Noise
from plotly.subplots import make_subplots
from statsmodels.tsa.seasonal import seasonal_decompose
from plotly.subplots import make_subplots
import plotly.graph_objects as go
def plotSeasonalDecompose(
x,
model='additive',
filt=None,
period=None,
two_sided=True,
extrapolate_trend=0,
title="Seasonal Decomposition"):
result = seasonal_decompose(
x, model=model, filt=filt, period=period,
two_sided=two_sided, extrapolate_trend=extrapolate_trend)
fig = make_subplots(
rows=4, cols=1,
subplot_titles=["Observed", "Trend", "Seasonal", "Residuals"])
for idx, col in enumerate(['observed', 'trend', 'seasonal', 'resid']):
fig.add_trace(
go.Scatter(x=result.observed.index, y=getattr(result, col), mode='lines'),
row=idx+1, col=1,
)
return fig
plotSeasonalDecompose(
df["y"],
model="additive",
period=24,
title="Seasonal Decomposition")
Split the data into training and testing
Let’s divide our data into sets 1. Data to train our TSB Model. 2.
Data to test our model
For the test data we will use the last 500 Hours to test and evaluate
the performance of our model.
train = df[df.ds<='2023-01-31 19:00:00']
test = df[df.ds>'2023-01-31 19:00:00']
Implementation of TSB Model with StatsForecast
Load libraries
from statsforecast import StatsForecast
from statsforecast.models import TSB
Building Model
Import and instantiate the models. Setting the argument is sometimes
tricky. This article on Seasonal
periods by the
master, Rob Hyndmann, can be useful for season_length.
season_length = 24 # Hourly data
horizon = len(test) # number of predictions
models = [TSB(alpha_d=0.8, alpha_p=0.9)]
We fit the models by instantiating a new StatsForecast object with the
following parameters:
models: a list of models. Select the models you want from models and
import them.
-
freq: a string indicating the frequency of the data. (See pandas’
available
frequencies.)
-
n_jobs: n_jobs: int, number of jobs used in the parallel
processing, use -1 for all cores.
-
fallback_model: a model to be used if a model fails.
Any settings are passed into the constructor. Then you call its fit
method and pass in the historical data frame.
sf = StatsForecast(models=models, freq='h')
Fit the Model
StatsForecast(models=[TSB])
Let’s see the results of our TSB Model. We can observe it with the
following instruction:
result=sf.fitted_[0,0].model_
result
{'mean': array([65.58645721]),
'fitted': array([ nan, 0. , 9. , ..., 14.937817 ,
1.4937816 , 0.14937817], dtype=float32),
'sigma': np.float32(63.87893)}
Forecast Method
If you want to gain speed in productive settings where you have multiple
series or models we recommend using the StatsForecast.forecast method
instead of .fit and .predict.
The main difference is that the .forecast doest not store the fitted
values and is highly scalable in distributed environments.
The forecast method takes two arguments: forecasts next h (horizon)
and level.
h (int): represents the forecast h steps into the future. In this
case, 500 hours ahead.
The forecast object here is a new data frame that includes a column with
the name of the model and the y hat values, as well as columns for the
uncertainty intervals. Depending on your computer, this step should take
around 1min.
Y_hat = sf.forecast(df=train, h=horizon)
Y_hat
| unique_id | ds | TSB |
|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2023-01-31 20:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 1 | 1 | 2023-01-31 21:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 2 | 1 | 2023-01-31 22:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| … | … | … | … |
| 497 | 1 | 2023-02-21 13:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 498 | 1 | 2023-02-21 14:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 499 | 1 | 2023-02-21 15:00:00 | 65.586456 |
Predict method with confidence interval
To generate forecasts use the predict method.
The predict method takes two arguments: forecasts the next h (for
horizon) and level.
h (int): represents the forecast h steps into the future. In this
case, 500 hours ahead.
The forecast object here is a new data frame that includes a column with
the name of the model and the y hat values, as well as columns for the
uncertainty intervals.
This step should take less than 1 second.
forecast_df = sf.predict(h=horizon)
forecast_df
| unique_id | ds | TSB |
|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2023-01-31 20:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 1 | 1 | 2023-01-31 21:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 2 | 1 | 2023-01-31 22:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| … | … | … | … |
| 497 | 1 | 2023-02-21 13:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 498 | 1 | 2023-02-21 14:00:00 | 65.586456 |
| 499 | 1 | 2023-02-21 15:00:00 | 65.586456 |
Cross-validation
In previous steps, we’ve taken our historical data to predict the
future. However, to asses its accuracy we would also like to know how
the model would have performed in the past. To assess the accuracy and
robustness of your models on your data perform Cross-Validation.
With time series data, Cross Validation is done by defining a sliding
window across the historical data and predicting the period following
it. This form of cross-validation allows us to arrive at a better
estimation of our model’s predictive abilities across a wider range of
temporal instances while also keeping the data in the training set
contiguous as is required by our models.
The following graph depicts such a Cross Validation Strategy:
Cross-validation of time series models is considered a best practice but
most implementations are very slow. The statsforecast library implements
cross-validation as a distributed operation, making the process less
time-consuming to perform. If you have big datasets you can also perform
Cross Validation in a distributed cluster using Ray, Dask or Spark.
In this case, we want to evaluate the performance of each model for the
last 5 months (n_windows=), forecasting every second months
(step_size=50). Depending on your computer, this step should take
around 1 min.
The cross_validation method from the StatsForecast class takes the
following arguments.
-
df: training data frame
-
h (int): represents h steps into the future that are being
forecasted. In this case, 500 hours ahead.
-
step_size (int): step size between each window. In other words:
how often do you want to run the forecasting processes.
-
n_windows(int): number of windows used for cross validation. In
other words: what number of forecasting processes in the past do you
want to evaluate.
crossvalidation_df = sf.cross_validation(df=df,
h=horizon,
step_size=50,
n_windows=5)
The crossvaldation_df object is a new data frame that includes the
following columns:
unique_id: series identifier
ds: datestamp or temporal index
cutoff: the last datestamp or temporal index for the n_windows.
y: true value
model: columns with the model’s name and fitted value.
| unique_id | ds | cutoff | y | TSB |
|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2023-01-23 12:00:00 | 2023-01-23 11:00:00 | 0.0 | 0.000005 |
| 1 | 1 | 2023-01-23 13:00:00 | 2023-01-23 11:00:00 | 0.0 | 0.000005 |
| 2 | 1 | 2023-01-23 14:00:00 | 2023-01-23 11:00:00 | 0.0 | 0.000005 |
| … | … | … | … | … | … |
| 2497 | 1 | 2023-02-21 13:00:00 | 2023-01-31 19:00:00 | 60.0 | 65.586456 |
| 2498 | 1 | 2023-02-21 14:00:00 | 2023-01-31 19:00:00 | 20.0 | 65.586456 |
| 2499 | 1 | 2023-02-21 15:00:00 | 2023-01-31 19:00:00 | 20.0 | 65.586456 |
Model Evaluation
Now we are going to evaluate our model with the results of the
predictions, we will use different types of metrics MAE, MAPE, MASE,
RMSE, SMAPE to evaluate the accuracy.
from functools import partial
import utilsforecast.losses as ufl
from utilsforecast.evaluation import evaluate
evaluate(
test.merge(Y_hat),
metrics=[ufl.mae, ufl.mape, partial(ufl.mase, seasonality=season_length), ufl.rmse, ufl.smape],
train_df=train,
)
| unique_id | metric | TSB |
|---|
| 0 | 1 | mae | 55.584594 |
| 1 | 1 | mape | 1.177129 |
| 2 | 1 | mase | 1.326048 |
| 3 | 1 | rmse | 60.884468 |
| 4 | 1 | smape | 0.740778 |
References
- Changquan Huang • Alla Petukhina. Springer series (2022). Applied
Time Series Analysis and Forecasting with
Python.
- Ivan Svetunkov. Forecasting and Analytics with the Augmented
Dynamic Adaptive Model (ADAM)
- James D. Hamilton. Time Series Analysis Princeton University Press,
Princeton, New Jersey, 1st Edition,
1994.
- Nixtla TSB API
- Pandas available
frequencies.
- Rob J. Hyndman and George Athanasopoulos (2018). “Forecasting
Principles and Practice (3rd
ed)”.
- Seasonal periods- Rob J
Hyndman.