A sales forecasting system based on fuzzy neural network with initial weights generated by genetic algorithm

Abstract

Sales forecasting is highly complex due to the influence of internal and external environments. However, reliable prediction of sales can improve the quality of business strategy. Recently, artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been applied for sales forecasting due to their promising performance in the areas of control and pattern recognition. However, further improvement is still necessary since unique circumstances such as promotion can cause sudden changes in sales patterns. Thus, the present study utilizes the proposed fuzzy neural network with initial weights generated by genetic algorithm (GFNN) for the sake of learning fuzzy IF–THEN rules for promotion obtained from marketing experts. The result from GFNN is further integrated with an ANN forecast using the time series data and the promotion length from another ANN. Model evaluation results for a convenience store (CVS) company indicate that the proposed system can perform more accurately than the conventional statistical method and a single ANN.