Two small case studies needing maths for forecasting and knowledge of operations management

a. Note that sale significantly shift from week to week. Assume the same pattern (upward and
downward) happens in future. Among three methods (naive, moving average method, and
exponential smoothing) which method should be chosen? You do not need to calculate
anything at this part. Simply discuss your reasons (3 marks).
b. Forecast using the naive method and the moving-average method (n = 3) and compare overall
MAD and MSE values and briefly discuss the results. (3 marks).
c. Forecast using the exponential smoothing method based on alpha values of 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4,
and 0.5. Compare both MAD and MSE and discuss the results. Please note that forecast in
Week 1 is 120. (4 marks)

1 How would you specify ‘quality’ for Kitchenware?
2 What are the causes of the problems at Kitchenware?
3 How can Kitchenware measure quality at each stage of the process?
4 What steps do you suggest John Smith to improve quality?