Reference no: EM132334894

Question 1: The following gives the number of pints of type B blood used at Woodlawn Hospital in the past 6 weeks:

WEEK OF	PINTS USED
August 31	360
September 7	389
September 14	410

b) Use a 3-week weighted moving average, with weights of .1, .3, and .6, using .6 for the most recent week. Forecast demand for the week of October 12.

c) Compute the forecast for the week of October 12 using exponential smoothing with a forecast for August 31 of 360 and α = .2.

Question 2: Income at the law firm Smith and Jones for the period February to July was as follows:

Month               February      March      April       May       June       July

Income              70.0           68.5        64.8      71.7       71.3      72.8

(in $000s)

Use trend-adjusted exponential smoothing to forecast the law firm's August income. Assume that the initial forecast for February is $65 000 and the initial trend adjustment is 0. The smoothing constants selected are α = 0.1 and β = 0.2.

Question 3: Sales of vegetable dehydrators at Bud Banis' s discount department store in Gander over the past year are shown below. Management prepared a forecast using a combination of exponential smoothing and its collective judgment for the four months March. April. May. and June of 2016:

Month	2015-2016 Unit sales	Management's Forecast
July	100
August	93
September	96
October	110
November	124
December	119
January	92
February	83
March	101	120
April	96	114
May	89	110
June	108	108

a) Compute MAD and MAPE for management's technique.

b) Do management's results outperform (i.e., have smaller MAD and MAPE than) a naive forecast?

c) Which forecast do you recommend, based on lower forecast error?