Comparison of Exponential Smoothing Methods for Forecasting Marine Fish Production in Pekalongan Waters, Central Java

Abstract

Pekalongan waters, a part of the Java Sea, has potency to develop marine fisheries sector to increase regional income and community livelihoods. The fluctuation of marine fish production every year requires serious attention in planning and policy strategies for the utilization of the fishery resources. Time series fish production data can be used to predict fish production in the following years through the forecasting process. The data used in this study is fish production data from Pekalongan Fishing Port, Central Java, from January 2011 to December 2020. The method used is data exponential smoothing by comparing three exponential smoothing methods consisting of single/simple exponential smoothing, double exponential smoothing and Holt-Winters’ exponential smoothing. The criterion that used to measure the forecasting performance is the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) value. The smaller MAPE value shows the better the forecasting result. The smallest MAPE value is obtained by finding the optimal smoothing constant value which is usually calculated using the trial and error method. However, in this study, the constant value was calculated using the add-in solver approach in Microsoft Excel. The forecasting results obtained show that forecasting using the Holt Winter Exponential Smoothing method is reasonable with a MAPE value of 37.878.