An Introduction to Management Science 13th Edition by David Anderson,Dennis Sweeney ,Thomas Williams ,Jeffrey Camm, Kipp Martin

Exercise 10

The Seneca Children's Fund (SCC) is local charity that runs a summer camp for disadvantaged children. The fund's board of directors has been working very hard over recent years to decrease the amount of overhead expenses, a major factor in how charities are rated by independent agencies. The following data show the percentage of the money SCC has raised that were spent on administrative and fund-raising expenses for 2003-2009:
a. Construct a time series plot. What type of pattern exists in the data?
b. Use Excel Solver or LINGO to find the parameters for the line that minimizes MSE this time series.
c. Forecast the percentage of administrative expenses for 2010.
d. If SCC can maintain their current trend in reducing administrative expenses, how long will it take them to achieve a leave of 5% or less?