A dry cleaner uses exponential smoothing to forecast

Question

1. National scan, Inc., sells radio frequency inventory tags. Monthly sales for a seven-month period were as follows:

Month	Sales
	(units)
Feb	19
Mar	18
Apr	17
May	20
Jun	19
Jul	22
Aug	20

1. Forecast September sales volume using the naïve approach.
2. Forecast September sales volume using a linear equation. a=17.43, b = 0.46.
3. Forecast September sales volume using a five-month moving average
4. Forecast September sales volume using a weighted average using .60 for August, .30 for July, and .10 for June.
5. Forecast September sales volume using Exponential smoothing with a smoothing constant equal to .20, assuming a March forecast of 19.

2, A dry cleaner uses exponential smoothing to forecast equipment usage at its main plant. August usage was forecast to be 88 percent of capacity; actual usage was 89.6 percent of capacity. A smoothing constant (Alpha) of .2 is used.

a.Prepare a forecast for September.

b.  Assuming actual September usage of 92 percent, prepare a forecast for October usage.

3. A cosmetics manufacturer's marketing department has developed a linear trend equation that can be used to predict annual sales of its popular Hand & Foot Cream.

F_t  =80+14t

Where

F_t   Annual forecast in sales (bottles)

t= 0 corresponds to 1990

a.    Predict annual sales for the year 2006 using the equation.

4.The manager of travel agency has been using a seasonally adjusted forecast to predict demand for packaged tours. The actual and predicted values are as follows:

Period	Demand	Predicted
1	129	124
2	194	200
3	156	150
4	91	94
5	85	80
6	132	140
7	126	128
8	126	124
9	95	100
10	149	150

a.    Compute MAD for the 5^th  period

b.    Compute MAPE for the 10^th period