The following gives the number of tables sold during each of the last four months by a furniture store.
Month Tables Sold
September 50
October 46
November 44
December 52
a. Using a four-period weighted moving average, with weights w1 = .4, w2 = .3, w3 = .2 and w4 = .1, forecast the number of tables to be sold in January.
b. Using a three-period simple moving average, forecast the number of tables to be sold in January.
c. Using simple exponential smoothing with an initial forecast for September of 46 and smoothing constant α = 0.3, forecast the number of tables to be sold in January. If you also had to make a forecast for February (two months from now), what would it be?
d. Which of the forecasting methods used in part (b) and part (c) above will be more responsive to changes in demand?