Clyde's Chairs and Things sells custom made chairs. Yearly sales from 1983 to 2011 are provided below. After analyzing the information, answer the following questions as completely as possible:
1. Plot the yearly sales data.
2. Compute the sales forecast for 2012 using the following approaches:
a) Native forecast
b) A four year moving average
c) A weighted 3 year average using .5 for 2011, .3 for 2010, and .2 for 2009
d) Exponential smoothing with alpha (smoothing constant) equal to .4 and assuming a 1984 forecast value of 20,050
3. Which method was the most appropriate and why? Which was the least appropriate and why?
|
Year
|
Chair Sales (Qty.)
|
|
1983
|
16,688
|
|
1984
|
21,184
|
|
1985
|
25,594
|
|
1986
|
28,110
|
|
1987
|
25,311
|
|
1988
|
20,112
|
|
1989
|
14,521
|
|
1990
|
10,749
|
|
1991
|
11,343
|
|
1992
|
15,162
|
|
1993
|
15,820
|
|
1994
|
16,533
|
|
1995
|
14,449
|
|
1996
|
15,077
|
|
1997
|
15,152
|
|
1998
|
16,303
|
|
1999
|
15,457
|
|
2000
|
14,199
|
|
2001
|
13,030
|
|
2002
|
13,636
|
|
2003
|
13,037
|
|
2004
|
14,842
|
|
2005
|
14,585
|
|
2006
|
10,916
|
|
2007
|
6,928
|
|
2008
|
5,368
|
|
2009
|
5,074
|
|
2010
|
5,839
|
|
2011
|
4,889
|
Prepare this assignment in a Microsoft Word document.