The Independence School is a private grade school that depends on enrollment forecasting to plan for the upcoming school year. The following data show the enrollments for the past several years. These data can also be found in the Excel file Independence School.xlsx.

Year Enrollment Year Enrollment 2006 624 2010 630 2007 645 2011 625 2008 659 2012 641 2009 643 2013 656

a. Forecast the 2014 enrollment for the Independence School using four-period simple moving average.

b. Calculate the MAD for the forecast in part a.

c. Forecast the 2014 enrollment for the Independence School using exponential smoothing with a = 0.4.

d. Calculate the MAD for the forecast in part c.

e. In which forecast do you have most confidence? Why?

AppendixLO1