Question

Bradley's Copiers sells and repairs photocopy machines. The manager needs weekly forecasts of service calls so that he can schedule service personnel. Use the actual demand in the first period for the forecast for the first week so error measurement begins in the second week. The manager uses exponential smoothing with a = 0.1. Forecast the number of calls for week 6, which is next week.

Week Actual Service Calls 2
1 8
2 34
3 38
4 27
5 25
The forecast for week 6 is ________ service calls.

Answer 1

28.86

Explanation:

According to the scenario, computation of given data are as follows,

Exponential smoothing a = 0.1

we can calculate forecast for each week by using following formula,

Forecast for week = Forecast of last week + a × ( actual calls of last week - forecast of last week)

By using this method, forecast for all week are as follows

Week Actual calls Forecast Calculation

1 28 28

2 34 28 [28 + 0.1 × ( 28 - 28)]

3 38 28.60 [28 + 0.1 × ( 34 - 28)]

4 27 29.54 [28.6 + 0.1 × ( 38 - 28.6)]

5 25 29.29 [29.54 + 0.1 × ( 29 - 29.54)]

6. 28.86 [29.29 + 0.1 × ( 25 - 29.29)]