Executive Summary

Bama Burger Buggy $($BBB$)$ is a local food truck company. The company currently has multiple trucks serving food across the local area, and the company records all items sold across all trucks every day.

A central aspect of BBB$\text{'}$s marketing is fresh, homemade products. Everything sold is handmade in BBB$\text{'}$s central kitchen facility.

Currently, the company is attempting to forecast how much ground beef will be sold every day. However, the forecasting method currently being used for ground beef is not very accurate because too much stock is going bad and spoiling. The folks at BBB have hired you, an outside consultant, to solve this problem by designing a better forecasting method.

Project Description

The folks at BBB have noticed that a lot of ground beef has been spoiling, usually because there is too much stock left over after the daily demand is met. It has come to attention that a rival food truck company, Aubie Roadkill, does not have this issue due to its accurate forecasting methods. This saves Aubie Roadkill thousands of dollars each month.

The current forecasting method for ground beef is simply to buy as much ground beef as the butcher has on hand for the following day. However, this forecasting method is very inaccurate, and it is leading to a major expense that BBB needs to avoid. There should be a better way to forecast the usage of ground beef.

BBB has data detailing the daily demand for all the ground beef they have sold over the past two years $($units are in ounces$).$ They have provided this data in the BBB $-$ FC Student file. The company has hired you, an outside consultant, to create a better forecasting method using this data. The folks at BBB have asked that you try the Exponential Smoothing and Weighted Moving Average forecasting methods. When using the Exponential Smoothing method, you have been asked to use an $$ of $0\mathrm{.}20.$ For the Weighted Moving Average method, you have been asked to use a three$-$period weighted moving average with weights of $5,3,$ and $1,($from most recent period to latest period$).$

Deliverables $-$

BBB has provided daily demand of ground beef sales for the last two years.

You have been asked to recommend one of two forecasting methods, either Exponential Smoothing or Weighted Moving Average. Using the data provided, fill out an analysis in Microsoft Excel determining which forecasting method is more accurate. You will need to calculate the forecasts over both years of data with both forecasting methods. Then you will need to calculate the Mean Absolute Deviation $($MAD$)$ for both forecasting methods.

You will also need to write a short paragraph that describes which forecasting method BBB should use and why.