In Problems 5-17 and 5-18, three different fore-casts were developed for the demand for fertilizer. These three forecasts are a 3-year moving average, a weighted moving average, and a trend line. Which one would you use? Explain your answer.
In Problems 5-17, Data collected on the yearly demand for 50- pound bags of fertilizer at Wallace Garden Supply are shown in the following table. Develop a 3-year moving average to forecast sales. Then estimate demand again with a weighted moving average in which sales in the most recent year are given a weight of 2 and sales in the other 2 years are each given a weight of
Demand for Fertilizer
Year (1,000s of Ba gs)
1 ........... 4
2 ........... 6
3 ........... 4
4 ........... 5
5 ........... 10
6 ........... 8
7 ........... 7
8 ........... 9
9 ........... 12
10 .......... 14
11 .......... 15