Abstract

RODRIGUEZ GONZALEZ, Ramón; LEON GONZALEZ, Jorge Luis  and  ALVAREZ SANCHEZ, Yanelys. Forecast of the demand for medications by a pharmaceutical organization using the Arima model. Universidad y Sociedad [online]. 2021, vol.13, n.1, pp. 119-130.  Epub Feb 02, 2021. ISSN 2218-3620.

The study of the demand for medications is one of the stages that should be taken into account in planning these inventories. Such study helps managers and governmental organizations in the decision-making process. The scope of this paper is to put forth a method of forecasting the demand for medications by a pharmaceutical organization. The study analyzes historical demand data in combination with morbidity data. A procedure is designed, based on the available scientific literature, and applied to one of the 487 medications studied. The forecast is adjusted according to the changes of morbidity; the data was provided by pharmaceutical authorities. The results suggest that the ARIMA (0,1,1)x(0,1,1)12 is the most adequate to forecast the demand of this product. Future researches may test the procedure designed in a wider variety of medications. This paper defines stages for the medication inventory forecast, by offering guidelines of the different activities that inventory planners should perform.

Keywords : Demand for medications; demand forecast; ARIMA model.

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