A fuzzy polynomial fitting and mathematical programming approach for enhancing the accuracy and precision of productivity forecasting

Abstract

Forecasting future productivity is a critical task to every organization. However, the existing methods for productivity forecasting have two problems. First, the logarithmic or log-sigmoid value, rather than the original value, of productivity is dealt with. Second, the objective functions are not consistent with those adopted in practice. To address these problems, a fuzzy polynomial fitting and mathematical programming (FPF-MP) approach are proposed in this study. The FPF-MP approach solves two polynomial programming problems, based on the original value of productivity, in two steps to optimize accuracy and precision of forecasting future productivity, respectively. A real case was adopted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology. According to the experimental results, the proposed FPF-MP approach outperformed six existing methods in improving the forecasting accuracy and precision.