1.  For example, when I worked in a Ford assembly plant, we had to be careful to not order too many radios or too many airbags.  The reason is that we had to keep these items in locked cages on the assembly line because they were otherwise pilfered.  Only so many of each could fit in the cages, the size of which had to be kept limited due to the space constraints on the assembly line and the general philosophy of keeping material in trucks, on the assembly line, or moving from a truck in a receiving bay door to the assembly line.

Class,

What are some other characteristics of specific inventory items to consider in determining the level of risk associated with ordering too much of those items?

2. When calculating MAPE I recommend using Excel and creating a formula.  Many formulas already exist in the standard version of Excel, but MAPE is unfortunately not one of them.  However, if you are familiar with creating formulas in Excel, you can refer to the formula provided in our text (Heizer & Render, 2011, p. 115) and create that in Excel.  
Class,
How comfortable are you with creating formulas for forecasting in Excel?