U. Kerzel

U. Kerzel

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning have enormous potential to transform businesses and disrupt entire industry sectors. However, companies wishing to integrate algorithmic decisions into their face multiple challenges: They have to identify use-cases in which artificial intelligence can create value, as well as decisions that can be supported or executed automatically. Furthermore, the organization will need to be transformed to be able to integrate AI based systems into their human work-force. Furthermore, the more technical aspects of the underlying machine learning model have to be discussed in terms of how they impact the various units of a business: Where do the relevant data come from, which constraints have to be considered, how is the quality of the data and the prediction evaluated? The Enterprise AI canvas is designed to bring Data Scientist and business expert together to discuss and define all relevant aspects which need to be clarified in order to integrate AI based systems into a digital enterprise. It consists of two parts where part one focuses on the business view and organizational aspects, whereas part two focuses on the underlying machine learning model and the data it uses.

F. Wick, U. Kerzel, M. Hahn et al.

Demand forecasting is a central component of the replenishment process for retailers, as it provides crucial input for subsequent decision making like ordering processes. In contrast to point estimates, such as the conditional mean of the underlying probability distribution, or confidence intervals, forecasting complete probability density functions allows to investigate the impact on operational metrics, which are important to define the business strategy, over the full range of the expected demand. Whereas metrics evaluating point estimates are widely used, methods for assessing the accuracy of predicted distributions are rare, and this work proposes new techniques for both qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods. Using the supervised machine learning method "Cyclic Boosting", complete individual probability density functions can be predicted such that each prediction is fully explainable. This is of particular importance for practitioners, as it allows to avoid "black-box" models and understand the contributing factors for each individual prediction. Another crucial aspect in terms of both explainability and generalizability of demand forecasting methods is the limitation of the influence of temporal confounding, which is prevalent in most state of the art approaches.