Exam 11: Forecasting and Demand Planning

State Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) statistics show the rate of new driver's license applications to be as shown below: a.Using a 3-week moving average, what is the forecast for the first week in April? b.Using a 5-week moving average, what is the forecast for the first week in April?

All of the following are important concepts in forecasting except

Which is not true regarding simple exponential smoothing?

The manager of a gas station along an interstate highway has observed that gasoline sales generally increase each week over the summer months as more families travel by car on vacations.He also believes that sales are sensitive to fluctuations in the price of gasoline.He developed the following regression model: Sales = 59407 + 509 (Week) - 16463 (Price/gallon) a.Interpret the coefficients of the independent variables in this model. b.What is the sales forecast for the 11^th week of the summer if the price per gallon is estimated to be $3.00?

Statistical forecasting is based upon the assumption that the future will be an extrapolation of the past.

Which of the following does not fit with the Delphi method?

Exponential smoothing...

An exponential smoothing model can be found easily by applying the Excel Add Trendline option to a time series.

Consider the sales for six consecutive weeks for Sam's Strawberries.The sales are in "flats" sold. a.Using a 3-period moving average, forecast the sales for weeks four through six. b.Use exponential smoothing with $\alpha$ = .3 to forecast sales for weeks four through six. c.Use linear regression (time series) to develop a prediction equation that will forecast sales.Then use that prediction equation to get forecasts for weeks four through six. d.Use MAD to pick the best forecasting method of A through C.

Single exponential smoothing with a smoothing constant value of .25 puts the same weight on the most recent actual demand as a 4-period moving average.

All of the following are important in choosing a forecasting method except

Ed Rogers owns an appliance store.Sales data on a particular model of a DVD player for the past six months are: Forecast sales for July using an exponential smoothing model with a smoothing constant of 0.40.Assume that the forecast for May was 36.25.

A(n) ____ is a one-time variation that is explainable.

A 7-month simple moving average would approximately equate with what alpha ( $\alpha$ ) factor for simple exponential smoothing?

MAD, MSE, and MAPE forecast error metrics generally give similar numerical results so it doesn't matter which one is used.

Explain how forecasting is used at different levels of an organization.

In a regression model, both the dependent and independent variables must be numerical.