Sales for the past five months have been 15, 18, 12, 17, 13.Use the following methods to obtain a forecast of sales for the next month.a. The last-value methodb. The averaging methodc. The moving-average method with three months.

The last-value method is one of the simplest forecasting techniques. It involves taking the sales…

Answered: Sales for the past five months have…

Practical Management Science

6th Edition

ISBN:9781337406659

Author:WINSTON, Wayne L.

Publisher:WINSTON, Wayne L.

Chapter13: Regression And Forecasting Models

Section13.6: Moving Averages Models

Problem 19P: The file P13_19.xlsx contains the weekly sales of a particular brand of paper towels at a...

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The file P13_22.xlsx contains total monthly U.S. retail sales data. While holding out the final six months of observations for validation purposes, use the method of moving averages with a carefully chosen span to forecast U.S. retail sales in the next year. Comment on the performance of your model. What makes this time series more challenging to forecast?
The file P13_42.xlsx contains monthly data on consumer revolving credit (in millions of dollars) through credit unions. a. Use these data to forecast consumer revolving credit through credit unions for the next 12 months. Do it in two ways. First, fit an exponential trend to the series. Second, use Holts method with optimized smoothing constants. b. Which of these two methods appears to provide the best forecasts? Answer by comparing their MAPE values.
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The file P13_02.xlsx contains five years of monthly data on sales (number of units sold) for a particular company. The company suspects that except for random noise, its sales are growing by a constant percentage each month and will continue to do so for at least the near future. a. Explain briefly whether the plot of the series visually supports the companys suspicion. b. By what percentage are sales increasing each month? c. What is the MAPE for the forecast model in part b? In words, what does it measure? Considering its magnitude, does the model seem to be doing a good job? d. In words, how does the model make forecasts for future months? Specifically, given the forecast value for the last month in the data set, what simple arithmetic could you use to obtain forecasts for the next few months?
The file P13_28.xlsx contains monthly retail sales of U.S. liquor stores. a. Is seasonality present in these data? If so, characterize the seasonality pattern. b. Use Winters method to forecast this series with smoothing constants = = 0.1 and = 0.3. Does the forecast series seem to track the seasonal pattern well? What are your forecasts for the next 12 months?
The file P13_29.xlsx contains monthly time series data for total U.S. retail sales of building materials (which includes retail sales of building materials, hardware and garden supply stores, and mobile home dealers). a. Is seasonality present in these data? If so, characterize the seasonality pattern. b. Use Winters method to forecast this series with smoothing constants = = 0.1 and = 0.3. Does the forecast series seem to track the seasonal pattern well? What are your forecasts for the next 12 months?
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Sales for the past five months have been 15, 18, 12, 17, 13. Use the following methods to obtain a forecast of sales for the next month. a. The last-value method b. The averaging method c. The moving -average method with three months.