The monthly sales for Yazici Batteries, Inc., were as follows:

MONTH	SALES
January	20
February	21
March	15
April	14
May	13
June	16
July	17
August	18
September	20
October	20
November	21
December	23

With the data given, which method would allow you to forecast next March"s sales?

The actual demand for the patients at Omaha Emergency Medical Clinic for the first 6 weeks of this year follows:

Clinic administrator Marc Schniederjans wants you to forecast patient demand at the clinic for week 7 by using this data. You decide to use a weighted moving average method to find this forecast. Your method uses four actual demand levels, with weights of $0.333$ on the present period, $0.25$ one period ago, $0.25$ two peri= ods ago, and $0.167$ three periods ago.

What is the value of your forecast?

Lenovo uses the ZX-81 chip in some of its laptop computers. The prices for the chip during the past 12 months were as follows:

Which is better (using the mean absolute deviation): the 2-month average or the 3-month average?

Mark Gershon, owner of a musical instrument distributorship, thinks that demand for guitars may be related to the number of television appearances by the popular group Maroon 5 during the previous month. Mark has collected the data shown in the following table:

What is your estimate for guitar sales if Maroon 5 performed on TV nine times last month?

Mark Gershon, owner of a musical instrument distributorship, thinks that demand for guitars may be related to the number of television appearances by the popular group Maroon 5 during the previous month. Mark has collected the data shown in the following table:

Use the least-squares regression method to derive a forecasting equation.

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Compute the forecast for year 6 using exponential smoothing, an initial forecast for year 1 of 3,000 miles, and

$$\alpha=.5$$

.

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Forecast the mileage for next year (6th year) using a 2-year moving average.

Mark Gershon, owner of a musical instrument distributorship, thinks that demand for guitars may be related to the number of television appearances by the popular group Maroon 5 during the previous month. Mark has collected the data shown in the following table:

Use the least-squares regression method to derive a forecasting equation.

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Forecast the mileage for next year (6th year) using a 2-year moving average.

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Compute the forecast for year 6 using exponential smoothing, an initial forecast for year 1 of 3,000 miles, and $\alpha=.5$.

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Use a weighted 2-year moving average with weights of .4 and .6 to forecast next year's mileage. (The weight of $.6$ is for the most recent year.) What MAD results from using this approach to forecasting? (Hint: You will have only 3 years of matched data.)

The Carbondale Hospital is considering the purchase of a new ambulance. The decision will rest partly on the anticipated mileage to be driven next year. The miles driven during the past 5 years are as follows:

Use a weighted 2-year moving average with weights of $.4$ and $.6$ to forecast next year's mileage. (The weight of $.6$ is for the most recent year.) What MAD results from using this approach to forecasting? (Hint: You will have only 3 years of matched data.)

Refer to Problem 4.2. Develop a forecast for years 2 through 12 using exponential smoothing with $\alpha=.4$ and a forecast for year 1 of 6 . Plot your new forecast on a graph with the actual data and the naive forecast. Based on a visual inspection, which forecast is better?

A check-processing center uses exponential smoothing to forecast the number of incoming checks each month. The number of checks received in June was 40 million, while the forecast was 42 million. A smoothing constant of $.2$ is used.

What is the forecast for July?