Problem 1:

Observations of the demand for a spare part stocked at a parts supply depot during the calendar year 2012 were

a. Determine the one-step-ahead forecasts for the demand for January 2013 using 3-, 6-, and 12-month moving averages.

b. Using a four-month moving average, determine the one-step-ahead forecasts for July through December 2012.

c. Compute MAD, MSE, MAPE for the forecasts obtained in b.

Problem 2:

Observed weekly sales of ball peen hammers at the town hardware store over a ten-week period have been 13, 11, 26, 21, 32, 13, 21, 22, 30, and 26.

a. Suppose that five-week moving averages are used to forecast sales. Determine the one-step-ahead forecasts for weeks 6 through 10.

b. Suppose that exponential smoothing is used with a smoothing constant of α = 0.15. Find the exponential smoothing forecasts for weeks 6 through 10 (start the forecasting process from week 1).

c. Based on the MAD, which forecast method is better?

Problem 3:

The sales of a tablet computer in a popular electronic store during the calendar year 2012 were

a. Using 3-month simple moving average and exponential smoothing (with α = 0.10 and 0.20), determine the one-step-ahead forecasts for July 2012 through January 2013.

b. Using 3-month double moving average (using base level and trend), determine the one-step-ahead forecasts for July 2012 through January 2013.

c. Compute MAD, MSE, and MAPE for the above forecasts.

d. Based on the MAPE, which forecast method is the best?

Problem 4:

Compile a list of major system life-cycle activities. For each activity on the list, try to find the related supply chain activities. Present your finding in a table with the system life-cycle stage in the first column, system life-cycle activities in the second column and the related supply chain activities in the third column.