Objective Compliance

a) Identify the scenarios that require the use of forecasts

b) Analyze the different forecasting methods of qualitative models, time series models and causal models.

1- The demand for surgeries in patients of the General Hospital of Ponce has increased steadily during the last years as or can be seen in the following table:

Year Outpatient surgeries performed

1 45

2 50

3 52

4 56

5 58

6 ?

2- The director of medical services predicted six years ago that the demand in a year would be 4 surgeries. Using exponential smoothing with an Alpha = 0.20 to develop forecasts for years 2 to 6 What is the value of the DMA?

Year Real Forecast Error /Error/

1 45 42 ? 3

2 50 ? +7.4 ?

3 52 ? ? 7.9

4 56 ? +10.3 ?

5 58 ? ? 10.3

6 ? ? ? ?