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The manager of a utility company in the Texas panhandle wants to develop quarterly forecasts of power loads for the next year. The power loads are seasonal, and the data on the quarterly loads in megawatts (MW) for the last 4 years are as follows:
The manager estimates the total demand for the next year at 600 MW. Use the multiplicative seasonal method to develop the
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- Under what conditions might a firm use multiple forecasting methods?arrow_forwardThe 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.arrow_forwardThe owner of a restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana, has recorded sales data for the past 19 years. He has also recorded data on potentially relevant variables. The data are listed in the file P13_17.xlsx. a. Estimate a simple regression equation involving annual sales (the dependent variable) and the size of the population residing within 10 miles of the restaurant (the explanatory variable). Interpret R-square for this regression. b. Add another explanatory variableannual advertising expendituresto the regression equation in part a. Estimate and interpret this expanded equation. How does the R-square value for this multiple regression equation compare to that of the simple regression equation estimated in part a? Explain any difference between the two R-square values. How can you use the adjusted R-squares for a comparison of the two equations? c. Add one more explanatory variable to the multiple regression equation estimated in part b. In particular, estimate and interpret the coefficients of a multiple regression equation that includes the previous years advertising expenditure. How does the inclusion of this third explanatory variable affect the R-square, compared to the corresponding values for the equation of part b? Explain any changes in this value. What does the adjusted R-square for the new equation tell you?arrow_forward
- The Baker Company wants to develop a budget to predict how overhead costs vary with activity levels. Management is trying to decide whether direct labor hours (DLH) or units produced is the better measure of activity for the firm. Monthly data for the preceding 24 months appear in the file P13_40.xlsx. Use regression analysis to determine which measure, DLH or Units (or both), should be used for the budget. How would the regression equation be used to obtain the budget for the firms overhead costs?arrow_forwardThe 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?arrow_forwardThe 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?arrow_forward
- 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?arrow_forwardThe following table shows predicted product demand using your particular forecasting method along with the actual demand that occurred: FORECAST ACTUAL 1,515 1,585 1,415 1,515 1,715 1,615 1,755 1,680 1,805 1,730 Compute the tracking signal of each period using the mean absolute deviation and running sum of forecast errors.arrow_forwardBased on the following equation for a moving average forecast, what would have been the three week moving average forecast for week 53 for Small Town Restaurant (see downloaded file for actual demand)? Provide two decimal places and use normal rounding. What happens if we increase the time periods in our moving average forecast to six weeks opposed to three? Group of answer choices It would be more accurate because it includes more data. There would be no change. It would be less sensitive to changes. It would be better at predicting a trend.arrow_forward
- Select the most suitable forecasting technique (survey, Delphi, averaging seasonal, naive, trend, or associative) for predicting the popularity of a new television series.arrow_forwardSince the beginning of the year, the purchase manager at a department store has been recording sales data to be used to compute 4-period moving averages to forecast sales for an upcoming month. Sales data for the months of January through September are reported in the table below. Month January February March April May June July August September Sales 21 20 39 22 29 14 42 28 27 Computed forecast values are not rounded. Compute the four-period moving average forecast for October. value as a whole number by rounding. Specify the Compute the mean absolute deviation (MAD) for the four-period moving average forecasts. Specify the MAD as a whole number by rounding. Compute the mean squared error (MSE) for the four-period moving average forecasts. Specify the MSE as a whole number by rounding. Compute the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) for the four-period moving average forecasts. Specify the MAPE as a whole number by rounding. CHECK ANSWERarrow_forwardWith the multiplicative seasonal method of forecasting: the seasonal amplitude is a constant, regardless of the magnitude of average demand. there can be only four seasons in the time-series data. the times series cannot exhibit a trend. seasonal factors are multiplied by an estimate of average demand to arrive at a seasonal forecast.arrow_forward
- Practical Management ScienceOperations ManagementISBN:9781337406659Author:WINSTON, Wayne L.Publisher:Cengage,Contemporary MarketingMarketingISBN:9780357033777Author:Louis E. Boone, David L. KurtzPublisher:Cengage LearningMarketingMarketingISBN:9780357033791Author:Pride, William MPublisher:South Western Educational Publishing