Exam 8: Forecasting

Table 8.8 The manager of a pizza shop must forecast weekly demand for special pizzas so that he can order pizza shells weekly. Recent demand has been: -Use the information from Table 8.8. The pizza shop manager believes that a combination forecast might improve her ability to predict future demand, and thus improve keeping fresh ingredients on hand. She decides to use the 3-week simple moving average and 3-week weighted moving average, giving them equal weight. The 3-week weighted moving averages are .6 for the most recent period, .25 for the second most recent period, and .15 for the third most recent period. What is her forecast for week #7?

Demands for a newly developed salad bar at the Great Professional restaurant for the first six months of this year are shown in the following table. What is the forecast for July if the 3-month weighted moving-average method is used? (Use weights of 0.5 for the most recent demand, 0.3, and 0.2 for the oldest demand.)

________ analysis is a statistical approach that relies heavily on historical demand data to project the future size of demand, and it recognizes trends and seasonal patterns.

Forecast error is found by subtracting the forecast from the actual demand for a given period.

Table 8.2 The Agricultural Extension Agent's Office has tracked fertilizer application and crop yields for a variety of chickpea and has recorded the data shown in the following table. Their staff statistician developed the regression model and computed the performance statistics displayed below the data. -Use the information provided in Table 8.2. The value of Bushels when Fertilizer is 60 is:

The causal method of forecasting uses historical data on independent variables (such as promotional campaigns and economic conditions) to predict the demand of dependent variables (such as sales volume).

The naive forecast may be adapted to take into account a demand trend.

One aspect of demand that makes every forecast inaccurate is:

Assume that a time-series forecast is generated for future demand and subsequently it is observed that the forecast method did not accurately predict the actual demand. Specifically, the forecast errors were found to be: Mean absolute percent error = 10% Cumulative sum of forecast errors = 0 Which one of the statements concerning this forecast is True?

It is now near the end of May and you must prepare a forecast for June for a certain product. The forecast for May was 900 units. The actual demand for May was 1,000 units. You are using the exponential smoothing method with α = 0.20. The forecast for June is:

What are some of the principles organizations can observe to improve their forecasting process?

Table 8.6 -Use the information in Table 8.6. Use the exponential smoothing method with = 0.5 and a February forecast of 500 to forecast the sales for May.

Which forecasting technique would you consider for technological forecasts?

Traditional data processing applications are capable of handling big data.

Which one of the following statements about forecasting is False?

Table 8.8 The manager of a pizza shop must forecast weekly demand for special pizzas so that he can order pizza shells weekly. Recent demand has been: -Use the information from Table 8.8. The pizza shop manager is looking for a forecasting approach that will forecast her demand within 0.5 pizzas. If the actual demand for week #7 was 39 pizzas, which of the combination forecasts came closest to predicting this demand?

Better forecasting processes yield better forecasts.

Table 8.8 The manager of a pizza shop must forecast weekly demand for special pizzas so that he can order pizza shells weekly. Recent demand has been: -Use the information from Table 8.8. The pizza shop manager believes that a combination forecast might improve her ability to predict future demand, and thus improve keeping fresh ingredients on hand. She decides to use the 3-week simple moving average and exponentially smoothed average forecast, giving them equal weight. The smoothing constant is .10 and the previously forecasted demand for week 6 was 39.28 pizzas. What is her forecast for week #7?

Two mercenary forecasters dueled for the lucrative Surreal Farms egg production forecasting job. The farmer provided them with output levels from ten day's production and had them forecast the next ten days. The combatant's forecasts and the actual egg production are shown in the table. Which forecaster was more accurate and should be hired as a result of his performance on this trial?

The electricity bill at Padco was driven solely by the lights throughout the office; everything else was driven by alternative energy sources. The office was open roughly 8 hours a day, five days a week and the cleaning crew spent about the same amount of time in the offices each week night. The kilowatt hour usage for the office was best described as a: