Consider the data below:

Month 1: sales = 200 Month 2: sales = 214 Month 3: sales = 205 Month 4: sales = 215 Month 5: sales = 235 Month 6: sales = 215 Month 7: sales = 235 Month 8: sales = 212 Month 9: sales = 220 Month 10: sales = 205

Answer the following problems in a Word document.

1. Provide a moving average to this data. Consider a 2-month, a 3-month, and a 5-month moving average. Provide a line chart of all 3 potential moving averages relative to the actual results provided above. Compute the average deviation of your prediction. Which moving average would you recommend? Please copy and paste all of your work into a Word document.
2. Consider a weighting for the moving average. Provide an Excel file with the potential weights in cells A1, B1 for the 2-month moving average; A2, B2, C2 for the 3-month moving average; and A3, B3, C3, D3, E3 for the 5-month moving average. What weightings would you recommend? Why? [Note: I realize this is a wide-open/no solution problem.]
3. For the same data above, provide an exponential smoothing result. Please provide results for alpha = 0.1 incremented by 0.1 up to alpha = 0.9. Please provide the average deviation for each alpha. Comment on the preferred alpha moving forward. What is the forecast for Month 11 for each potential alpha?
4. What would you recommend as the forecasting tool to use going forward, given results from the previous problems 1-3?
5. Question 4.5 Page 106
6. Question 4.6 Page 106: For your organization or an organization you are familiar with, discuss management by objectives as it relates to organization shareholder equity.
7. Question 4.6 Page 106: As an engineering manager, how will you relate this to managing an engineering team?