Exam 8: Forecasting

Table 8.7 A sales manager wants to forecast monthly sales of the machines the company makes using the following monthly sales data. -Use the information in Table 8.7. Forecast the monthly sales of the machine for month 9, using the three-month moving-average method.

A weary traveler shows up at a hotel desk at midnight without a reservation. The desk clerk informs him that there is a room available, but sadly it is marked up 80% higher than the usual price. This is an example of promotional pricing.

Table 8.5 -Use the information in Table 8.5. Using the exponential smoothing method, with alpha equal to 0.2, what is the forecasted demand for November? Use an initial value for the forecast equal to 277 units.

The ________ measures the amount of variation in the dependent variable about its mean that is explained by the regression line.

Table 8.9 Consider the following results from the last ten periods of student enrollment forecast by the Operations Management department chairman. -Use Table 8.9 to determine the MAD for period 5 for the department chairman's forecast.

Table 8.1 The management of an insurance company monitors the number of mistakes made by telephone service representatives for a company they have subcontracted with. The number of mistakes for the past several months appears in this table along with forecasts for errors made with three different forecasting techniques. The column labeled Exponential was created using exponential smoothing with an alpha of 0.30. The column labeled MA is forecast using a moving average of three periods. The column labeled WMA uses a 3-month weighted moving average with weights of 0.65, 0.25, and 0.10 for the most-to-least recent months. -Using Table 8.1, what is the MSE for months 6-10 for the exponential smoothing technique?

The demand for an item over the last year is plotted below. Develop a forecast and explain why your approach is reasonable.

Which one of the following statements about forecasting is False?

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 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 weighted moving average and exponentially smoothed average forecast, 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. The smoothing constant is .10 and the previously forecasted demand for week 6 was 39.28 pizzas. What is her forecast for week #7?

Table 8.9 Consider the following results from the last ten periods of student enrollment forecast by the Operations Management department chairman. -Use Table 8.9 to determine the tracking signal for period 4 for the department chairman's forecast.

A water ski manufacturer believes they can double their sales by producing snow skis during the other half of the year. This approach to demand management is an example of complementary products.

Variations in demand that cannot be predicted are said to be a(n) ________ pattern.

The Delphi method is a process of gaining consensus from a group of experts by face-to-face, non-anonymous, debate and voting throughout several rounds of group discussion led by a moderator.

Table 8.7 A sales manager wants to forecast monthly sales of the machines the company makes using the following monthly sales data. -A forecaster that uses a holdout set approach as a final test for forecast accuracy typically uses:

Using salesforce estimates for forecasting has the advantage that:

Demand for a new five-inch color TV during the last six periods has been as follows: What is the forecast for period 7 if the company uses the simple moving-average method with n = 4?

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. What percent in the variation of the variable Bushels is explained by the value of the variable Fertilizer?

Aggregating products or services together generally decreases the forecast accuracy.

Graph 8.1 Data plotted in the graph appear in the table below. -Refer to Graph 8.1. Which term most accurately describes the data points associated with Saturdays and Sundays?