Abstract
Forecasting future sales is one of the most important issues that is beyond all strategic and planning decisions in effective operations of retail businesses. For profitable retail businesses, accurate demand forecasting is crucial in organizing and planning production, purchasing, transportation and labor force. Retail sales series belong to a special type of time series that typically contain trend and seasonal patterns, presenting challenges in developing effective forecasting models. This work compares the forecasting performance of state space models and ARIMA models. The forecasting performance is demonstrated through a case study of retail sales of five different categories of women footwear: Boots, Booties, Flats, Sandals and Shoes. On both methodologies the model with the minimum value of Akaike's Information Criteria for the in-sample period was selected from all admissible models for further evaluation in the out-of-sample. Both one-step and multiple-step forecasts were produced. The results show that when an automatic algorithm the overall out-of-sample forecasting performance of state space and ARIMA models evaluated via RMSE, MAE and MAPE is quite similar on both one-step and multi-step forecasts. We also conclude that state space and ARIMA produce coverage probabilities that are close to the nominal rates for both one-step and multi-step forecasts.

Abstract

Abstract
Considering the new paradigm in the industry, where clients request small amounts of a growing range of products, the times of crisis and the fierce competition for businesses survival, it is crucial for Organizations to be able to reduce the waste of raw materials. In the manufacturing industry, the waste of materials could be minimized with the introduction of decision support systems in the process. In this paper we propose an information system that enables the optimization of purchases and consumption of materials, promoting waste reduction and boosting profitability. © 2015 AISTI.

Abstract
Considering the new paradigm in the industry, where clients request small amounts of a growing range of products, the times of crisis and the fierce competition for businesses survival, it is crucial for Organizations to be able to reduce the waste of raw materials. In the manufacturing industry, the waste of materials could be minimized with the introduction of decision support systems in the process. In this paper we propose an information system that enables the optimization of purchases and consumption of materials, promoting waste reduction and boosting profitability.

Abstract
Considering the new paradigm in the industry, where clients request small amounts of a growing range of products, the times of crisis and the fierce competition for businesses survival, it is crucial for Organizations to be able to reduce the waste of raw materials. This waste could be minimized with the introduction of decision support systems in the process. In this paper we propose an information system that enables the optimization of purchases and consumption of materials, promoting waste reduction and boosting profitability.

Abstract
This chapter presents the preliminary results of an IT organizational project management maturity research called OPM3® Portugal Project, which is currently underway. It was designed by Portuguese research and development organization Ambithus, based on PMI's (Project Management Institute) OPM3® (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model) standard. A descriptive analysis of IT organizations is made, the case studies selection criteria are explained, and a relevant literature revision of clustering models is made. Preliminary results from the IT organizations are presented and organized by Project Management and Portfolio Management processes, and Organizational Enablers. After the results analysis, it presents a list of processes and procedures that serves as the guidelines for what IT organizations need to improve to obtain a better level of maturity in Project Management. The overall results show that the IT Portuguese industry is strong on its processes and has a good level of maturity in project management.