M&L Manufacturing makes various components for printers and copiers. In addition to supply these items to a major manufacturer of printers and copiers, the company distribute these and similar items to office supply stores and computer stores as replacement parts for printers and desktop copiers. The two markets (the major manufacturer and the replacement market) require somewhat different handling. For example, replacement product must be packaged individually whereas products are shipped in bulk to the major manufactures.

The company does not use forecasts for production planning. Instead, the operations manager decides which item to produce, and the batch size, based partly on orders, and the amounts in inventory get the heist priority. Demand is uneven, and the company has experienced being overstocked on some items and out of others. Being understock has occasionally created tension with the managers of retail outlets. Another problem is that price of raw materials has been creeping up, although the operations manager thinks thats this might be a temporary condition.

Because of competitive pressure and falling profits, the manager has decided to undertake a number of changes. One change is to introduce more formal forecasting procedures in order to improve production planning and inventory management.

With that in mind, the manager wants to begin forecasting for two products. These products are important for several reason. First, the account for a disproportionally large share of the companys profit. Second, the manager believes that one of these products will become increasingly important to future growth plans; and the third, the other product has experienced periodic out-of-stock instances.

The manager has completed data on product demand for the two products for order records for the previous 14 weeks.

These are show in the following table

WEEK	Product 1	Product 2
1	50	40
2	54	38
3	57	41
4	60	46
5	64	42
6	67	41
7	90	41
8	76	47
9	79	42
10	82	43
11	85	42
12	87	49
13	92	43
14	96	44

Question:

Prepare a weekly forecasting for the next four weeks for each product. Briefly explain why you choose the methods you used. (Hint: for product 2, a simple approach, possibly some sort of nave/intuitive approach, would be preferable to a technical approach in view of the managers disdain of more technical methods.)