Combining diffusion and grey models based on evolutionary optimization algorithms to forecast motherboard shipments

Abstract

It is important for executives to predict the future trends. Otherwise, their companies cannot make profitable decisions and investments. The Bass diffusion model can describe the empirical adoption curve for new products and technological innovations. The Grey model provides short-term forecasts using four data points. This study develops a combined model based on the rolling Grey model (RGM) and the Bass diffusion model to forecast motherboard shipments. In addition, we investigate evolutionary optimization algorithms to determine the optimal parameters. Our results indicate that the combined model using a hybrid algorithm outperforms other methods for the fitting and forecasting processes in terms of mean absolute percentage error. © 2012 Fu-Kwun Wang et al.