Question

The actual number of patients at Omaha Emergency Medical Clinic for the first six weeks of this year follows:

Week 1	No of patients
1	27
2	29
3	36
4	19
5	26
6	33

Clinic administrator Schneiederjans wants you to forecast patient numbers at the clinic for week 7 by using this data. You decide to use a weighted moving average method to find this forecast. Your method uses four actual demand levels, with weights of 0.333 on the present period, 0.250 one period ago, 0.250 two periods ago, and 0.167 three periods ago.

a)       What is the value of your forecast?   _____ patients (round to decimal places)

b)      If instead the weights were 20, 15, 15 and 10, respectively, how would the forecast chang?

a)       The value of the forecast will decrease

b)      The value of the forecast will increase

c)       The value of the forecast will remain the same.

What if the weights were 0.40, 0.30, 0.30, 0.10, respectively? Now what is the forecast for week 7? _____ patients (round to two decimal places)

Answer 1

1. Forecast for week 7 at Omaha emergency medical clinic

= 0.333 x actual for week 6 + 0.250 x actual for week 5 + 0.250 x actual for week 4 + 0.167 x actual for week 3

= 0.333 x 33 + 0.250 x 26 + 0.250 x 19 + 0.167 x 36

= 10.989 + 6.5 + 4.75 + 6.012

= 28.25

1. Forecast for week 7

= 20 x actual for week 6 + 15 x actual for week 5 + 15 x actual for week 4 + 10 x actual for week 3 / ( 20 + 15 + 15 + 10)

= ( 20 x 33 + 15 x 26 + 15 x 19 + 10 x 36) /60

= ( 660 + 390 + 285 + 360 ) / 60

= 1695/60

= 28.25

VALUE OF THE FORECAST WILL REMAIN SAME

1. Forecast for week 7

= 0.40x actual for week 6 + 0.30 x actual for week 5 + 0.20x actual for week 4 + 0.10 x actual for week 3

= 0.40 x 33 + 0.30 x 26 + 0.20 x 19 + 0.10 x 36

= 13.2 + 7.8 + 3.8 + 3.6

= 28.4

THE VALUE OF THE FORECAST IS = 28.40 PATIENTS