Wk$4$ Assignment

Part A$.($Chapter $9$: Forecasting$)$: A recent college graduate was hired by a whole foods store as an operations

planner. The owner of the store thought Kale should be forecasted using a smoothing value of $0\mathrm{.}13,$ while the

Operations manager felt a smoothing value of $0\mathrm{.}25$ would be better. Using F$1172$ and the Kale demand

below, which of the two managers is right and why?

$***$ Tip: an Excel file template is available under the CONTENT tab that you can use to enter the information

and solve the question. Use the template to determine the forecast values and forecast errors using the three

Forecast Error models presented in Chapter $9$ to guide your choice. See Exhibit $9\mathrm{.}8$ on page $186$ for an example.

Week Demand

$1,168$

$2,149$

$3,157$

$4,135$

$5,177$

$6,155$

$7,146$

$8,150$

$9,182$

$10,167$

$11,148$

$12163$

$13157$

$14,189$

Part B$.($Chapter $10$: Capacity Management$)$: Walmart forecasts the following demand for a product $($in

thousands of units$)$ over the next five years.

The company outsources its manufacturing to Procter & Gamble $($P&G$).$ P&G has six machines that operate on

a two$-$shift $(8$ hours each$)$ basis. There are $240$ workdays in a year and fifteen days per year are used for

scheduled maintenance of equipment with no process output. Each manufactured unit takes $28$ minutes to

produce.

a$.$ What is the capacity of the factory in units per year?

b$.$ At what capacity levels $($percentage of normal capacity$)$ would the firm be operating over the next five years

based on the forecasted demand? $($Hint: Compute the ratio of demand to capacity each year.$)$

c$.$ Does the firm need to buy more machines? If so$,$ how many? When? If not, justify.