Forecasting the impact of COVID-19 on andrographis extract medicine by time series and ANN model in Thailand

Ever since 2020, the global supply chain has been affected by Coronavirus. Regardless of the root cause, shortage of supply was imminent in comparison to the demand needed to fulfill the needs of consumers. Amid Thailand's COVID-19 outbreak in Early 2021, the country's health ministry approved the usage of Andrographis extract as an alternative treatment program for mild symptoms and asymptomatic patients as of July 2021. Thus, there has been a surge in demand for Andrographis extract. Hence, this study will focus on comparing the accuracy of each method used in forecasting the demand of Andrographis extract medicine in Thailand during the Covid-19 outbreak from 2020 to 2022. Three forecast methods used in this study are: Single Exponential smoothing, Double exponential smoothing, and ANN model. To indicate the most suitable model, MAPE and MAD method are used as a deciding factor in selecting the most suitable method to use, in which, ANN model provided the least error compared to other methods, which deemed most suitable method.