The Hughes Supply Company uses an inventory management method to determine the monthly demands for various products. The demand values for the last 12 months of each product have been recorded and are available for future forecasting. The demand values for the 12 months of 2006 for one electrical fixture are presented in Table P-11.
Table P-11
Month Demand
January …………………..205
February …………………251
March ……………………304
April …………………….284
May ……………………..352
June ……………………..300
July …………………….241
August ………………….284
September ………………312
October …………………289
November ………………385
December …………………256
Use exponential smoothing with a smoothing constant of .5 and an initial value of 205 to forecast the demand for January 2007.