Question

 

The human resources department needs to forecast the number of sexual harassement investigations for the entire company. The data for several months is supplied below. Be careful since the data is listed beginning with the most recent. The forecasting method to be used here is the 4 month weighted moving average adjusting for seasonality where the weights, starting with the most recent time period, are 0.4, 0.3, 0.2, 0.1. Again, you must find the seasonality factors for the data. Please round your forecast to the nearest whole number.

Apr 2020: 11	Mar 2020: 10	Feb 2020: 18	Jan 2020: 13	Dec 2019: 11	Nov 2019: 17
Oct 2019: 14	Sep 2019: 15	Aug 2019: 17	Jul 2019: 16	Jun 2019: 15	May 2019: 16
Apr 2019: 15	Mar 2019: 16	Feb 2019: 14	Jan 2019: 11	Dec 2018: 18	Nov 2018: 14
Oct 2018: 12	Sep 2018: 15	Aug 2018: 13	Jul 2018: 17	Jun 2018: 11	May 2018: 17
Apr 2018: 18	Mar 2018: 13

Answer 1

Forecast = 14

Data				Forecasts and Error Analysis
Period	Demand	Weights		Forecast	Error	Absolute	Squared	Abs Pct Err
Period 1	13	0.4	4 periods ago
Period 2	18	0.3	3 periods ago
Period 3	17	0.2	2 periods ago
Period 4	11	0.1	1 periods ago
Period 5	17			15.1	1.9	1.9	3.61	11.18%
Period 6	13			16.2	-3.2	3.2	10.24	24.62%
Period 7	15			14.8	0.2	0.2	0.04	01.33%
Period 8	12			13.6	-1.6	1.6	2.56	13.33%
Period 9	14			14.9	-0.9	0.9	0.81	06.43%
Period 10	11			13.5	-2.5	2.5	6.25	22.73%
Period 11	14			13.5	0.5	0.5	0.25	03.57%
Period 12	16			12.6	3.4	3.4	11.56	21.25%
Period 13	15			13.3	1.7	1.7	2.89	11.33%
Period 14	16			13.3	2.7	2.7	7.29	16.88%
Period 15	15			15	0	0	0	00.00%
Period 16	16			15.6	0.4	0.4	0.16	02.50%
Period 17	17			15.4	1.6	1.6	2.56	09.41%
Period 18	15			15.8	-0.8	0.8	0.64	05.33%
Period 19	14			15.7	-1.7	1.7	2.89	12.14%
Period 20	17			15.9	1.1	1.1	1.21	06.47%
Period 21	11			15.8	-4.8	4.8	23.04	43.64%
Period 22	13			14.7	-1.7	1.7	2.89	13.08%
Period 23	18			14.2	3.8	3.8	14.44	21.11%
Period 24	10			14.5	-4.5	4.5	20.25	45.00%
Period 25	11			12.9	-1.9	1.9	3.61	17.27%
				Total	-6.3	40.9	117.19	308.60%
				Average	-0.3	1.947619	5.580476	14.70%
					Bias	MAD	MSE	MAPE
						SE	2.483525
Next period	14