Reference no: EM132293353
Ms. Winnie Lin’s company sells computers. Monthly sales for a six-month period are as follows: Month Sales Jan 18,000 Feb 22,000 Mar 16,000 Apr 18,000 May 20,000 Jun 24,000
a. Plot the monthly data (scatter chart) on an Excel worksheet.
b. Compute the sales forecast for April, May, and June using the following approaches:
(1) Naive forecst;
(2) A three-month moving average.
(3) A weighted three-month moving average using .50 for At, .30 for At-1, and .20 for At-2.
(4) An exponential smoothing forecast using alpha = 0.4 (use naive forecast for March).
(5) Show a linear trend equation and use the equation to forecast.
(6) Calculate the MAD, MAPE, and MSE for each forecast method. Which method do you think is the least appropriate?