Fuzzy Delphi and back-propagation model for sales forecasting in PCB industry

Reliable prediction of sales can improve the quality of business strategy. In this research, fuzzy logic and artificial neural network are integrated into the fuzzy back-propagation network (FBPN) for sales forecasting in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) industry. The fuzzy back propagation network is constructed to incorporate production-control expert judgments in enhancing the model's performance. Parameters chosen as inputs to the FBPN are no longer considered as of equal importance, but some sales managers and production control experts are requested to express their opinions about the importance of each input parameter in predicting the sales with linguistic terms, which can be converted into pre-specified fuzzy numbers. The proposed system is evaluated through the real world data provided by a printed circuit board company and experimental results indicate that the Fuzzy back-propagation approach outperforms other three different forecasting models in MAPE measures. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.