Sales of industrial vacuum cleaners at R. Lowenthal Supply Co. over the past 13 months are as follows:

(a) Using a moving average with three periods, determine the demand for vacuum cleaners for next February.
(b) Using a weighted moving average with three periods, determine the demand for vacuum cleaners for February. Use 3, 2, and 1 for the weights of the most recent, second most recent, and third most recent periods, respectively. For example, if you were forecasting the demand for February, November would have a weight of 1, December would have a weight of 2, and January would have a weight of 3.
(c) Evaluate the accuracy of each of these methods.
(d) What other factors might R. Lowenthal consider in forecastingsales?

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SALES ($1,000s) MONTHSALES ($1,000s) MONTH 14 16 10 15 17 January February March April May June July 14 17 12 14 16 August September October November December January