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Jim’s department at a local department store has tracked the sales of a product over the last ten weeks. Forecast demand using exponential smoothing with an alpha of 0.4, and an initial forecast of 18.0 for period 1. Calculate the MAD and use it to calculate the tracking signal for the entire forecast from period 1 through period 10.  Answer to two decimal places. Period Demand 1 14 2 13 3 16 4 18 5 17 6 21 7 23 8 25 9 25 10 28

The quarterly sales for specific educational software over the past three years are given in the following table. Compute the seasonal index for Quarter 4. (choose the nearest answer)   YEAR 1 YEAR 2 YEAR 3 Quarter 1 1710 1820 1830 Quarter 2 960 910 1090 Quarter 3 2720 2840 2900 Quarter 4 2430 2200 2590  

Which of the following values of alpha would cause exponential smoothing to respond the Fastest to forecast errors?

The operations manager for a local bus company wants to decide whether he should purchase a small, medium, or large new bus for his company. He estimates that the annual profits (in $000) will vary depending upon whether passenger demand is low, moderate, or high, as follows: Bus             Low Demand     Medium Demand         High Demand      Small 50 60 70 Medium 40 80 90 Large 20 50 120 If he feels the chances of low, moderate, and high demand are 30%, 30%, and 40% respectively, what is his expected value of perfect information? 

The Weekly output of a doors from a garage door manufacturer is shown below, along with data for labor and material input. The standard value of the doors is $125 per unit.  Overhead is charged weekly at the rate of $1500 plus 0.5 times the direct labor cost.  Assume a 40-hour work week and an hourly wage of $16.  Material cost is $10 per foot.  What is the multifactor productivity for week 4? Week Output # of Workers Material (ft) 1 412 6 2840 2 364 5 2550 3 392 5 2720 4 408 6 2790

The head of operations for a movie studio wants to determine which of two new scripts they should select for their next major production. (Due to budgeting constraints, only one new picture can be undertaken at this time.) She feels that script #1 has a 70 percent chance of earning about $10,000,000 over the long run, but a 30 percent chance of losing $2,000,000. If this movie is successful, then a sequel could also be produced, with an 80 percent chance of earning $5,000,000, but a 20 percent chance of losing $1,000,000. On the other hand, she feels that script #2 has a 60 percent chance of earning $12,000,000, but a 40 percent chance of losing $3,000,000. If successful, its sequel would have a 50 percent chance of earning $8,000,000, but a 50 percent chance of losing $4,000,000. Of course, in either case, if the original movie were a “flop,” then no sequel would be produced. What is the expected value for the optimum decision alternative (choose the nearest solution)? 

Simple exponential smoothing is being used to forecast demand. The previous actual demand of [AD] turned out to be [error] units higher than forecasted demand. Using a smoothing constant of [alpha], what would the forecast for the next period be?(Answer to 1 decimal place)

Over the last four months paper sales at Dunder Mifflin Scranton were 85, 88, 91, 96 reams of paper. If an initial forecast for month 1 was 80 and an alpha of .10 was used find the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) for the first four month of forecasting. (select the nearest answer)   Month 1 2 3 4 Reams of Paper 85 88 91 96  

In the article I posted on Yellowdig about vaccinations the main theme was that

Which of the following smoothing constants would make an exponential smoothing forecast equivalent to a naive forecast?