An electronics retailer currently sources a popular smart-ho…

An electronics retailer currently sources a popular smart-home hub from a local manufacturer with a lead time of 3 weeks. To cut procurement costs, they are considering switching to an overseas supplier, which would increase the lead time to 15 weeks. The average demand rate for the hub is 400 units per week. If they make this switch, how many additional units will be tied up in pipeline inventory (on-order inventory)? Enter your answer as a whole number (for example 20).

An analyst at Facebook is using Exponential Smoothing to for…

An analyst at Facebook is using Exponential Smoothing to forecast Daily Active Users (DAUs). The last forecast (ŷₜ) was 400 million, and the actual demand (yₜ) turned out to be 500 million. If the analyst uses a conservative smoothing parameter of α = 0.2, what is the new forecast (ŷₜ₊₁)? Enter your answer as a whole number (for example, 20). Do not include zeros for “million.” For instance, if the answer is 20 million, enter 20.  

Two different companies have adopted strategies to manage va…

Two different companies have adopted strategies to manage variety without crippling inventory costs. Company X allows customers to customize the colors of their sneakers, only finishing the shoe once the exact order is placed. Company Y is an online retailer that sells thousands of rare, slow-moving books from a massive, single warehouse. According to the lecture notes, what fundamental concept links the success of both strategies?