Exam 4: Forecasting

The department manager using a combination of methods has forecast sales of toasters at a local department store.Calculate the MAD for the manager's forecast.Compare the manager's forecast against a naive forecast covering the same time period.Which is better?

In trend projection,a negative regression slope is mathematically impossible.

The last four weekly values of sales were 80,100,105,and 90 units.The last four forecasts were 60,80,95,and 75 units.These forecasts illustrate:

Computer monitoring of tracking signals and self-adjustment if a signal passes a preset limit is characteristic of:

Suppose that the last four months of sales were 8,10,15,and 9 units,respectively.Suppose further that the last four forecasts were 5,6,11,and 12 units,respectively.What is the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD)of these forecasts?

An innovative restaurateur owns and operates a dozen "Ultimate Low-Carb" restaurants in northern Arkansas.His signature item is a cheese-encrusted beef medallion wrapped in lettuce.Sales (x,in millions of dollars)is related to Profits (y-hat,in hundreds of thousands of dollars)by the regression equation y-hat = 8.21 + 0.76 x.What is your forecast of profit for a store with sales of $40 million? $50 million?

Favors Distribution Company purchases small imported trinkets in bulk,packages them,and sells them to retail stores.The managers are conducting an inventory control study of all their items.The following data are for one such item,which is not seasonal. a.Use a trend projection to estimate the relationship between time and sales (state the equation). b.Calculate forecasts for the first four months of the next year.

One use of short-range forecasts is to determine:

A skeptical manager asks what long-range forecasts can be used for.Give her three possible uses/purposes.

What is the forecast for May based on a weighted moving average applied to the following past demand data and using the weights: 4,3,2 (largest weight is for most recent data)?

A naïve forecast for September sales of a product would be equal to the sales in August.

Demand for a certain product is forecast to be 800 units per month,averaged over all 12 months of the year.The product follows a seasonal pattern,for which the January monthly index is 1.25.What is the seasonally-adjusted sales forecast for January?

Which of the following is not a type of qualitative forecasting?

If two variables were perfectly correlated,what would the coefficient of correlation r equal?

The following trend projection is used to predict quarterly demand: y-hat = 250 - 2.5x,where x = 1 in the first quarter.Seasonal (quarterly)indices are Quarter 1 = 1.5;Quarter 2 = 0.8;Quarter 3 = 1.1;and Quarter 4 = 0.6.What is the seasonally adjusted forecast for the next four quarters?

A restaurant has tracked the number of meals served at lunch over the last four weeks.The data show little in terms of trends,but do display substantial variation by day of the week.Use the following information to determine the seasonal (daily)indices for this restaurant.

Which of the following statements about time-series forecasting is true?

The forecasting technique that pools the opinions of a group of experts or managers is known as:

A(n)________ forecast uses an average of the most recent periods of data to forecast the next period.

What is the forecast for May using a four-month moving average?