The director of a large public library must schedule employees to reshelf books and periodicals checked out of the library. The number of items checked out will determine the labor requirements. The following data reflect the number of items checked out of the library for the past three? years:
Month Year 1 Year 2 Year 3
January 1,888 2,031 2,122
February 2,645 2,321 2,564
March 2,465 2,304 2,646
April 2,432 2,088 2,150
May 2,445 2,677 2,177
June 2,378 2,122 2,663
July 2,277 2,206 2,072
August 2,445 1,869 1,678
September 1,941 2,489 1,835
October 1,922 2,291 2,065
November 2,453 2,264 2,101
December 2,274 2,189 2,490
The director needs a? time-series method for forecasting the number of items to be checked out during the next month.
Suppose that the director considers the best forecast to be the one that minimizes the absolute value of mean bias ?(Upper E overbarE?).
Find the best simple moving average forecast you can using the? director's criteria.
Using the? director's criteria, the best forecast for the next month is ______items to be checked out. ?(Enter your response as a whole? number.)