23. The owners of a beer distributorship want to forecast the level of sales for the next 2 years, so they can determine the requirements for resources such as storage space, refrigerated storage, trucks, workers, and capital. The quarterly sales for the past 2 years and the first half of this year are given below.

a. Average the first year's sales to establish one point on a trend line. Average the sec- ond year's sales to determine the second point. Develop an equation for this trend line which expresses sales as a function of the quarter.

b. Determine the average seasonal index as the ratio of the actual demand to the trend value for each quarter, using the data for the first 2 years.

c. Do the sales for the first two quarters of the current year appear to be consistent with the model?

d. Use the model to estimate the quarterly sales for the last two quarters of the cur- rent year and for next year.

Transcribed Image Text:

YEAR QUARTER BEFORE LAST LAST YEAR CURRENT YEAR 1234 24,500 26,200 29,200 33,200 36,600 38,100 36,900 39,700 26,400 28,500