Analysis of the historical data series, including identification of seasonality

PK Village is a neighborhood 24-hour convenience store chain. The outlets, located in gas stations throughout South Florida offer over 10 thousand SKU (store keeping units), including limited selections of dairy products, packaged foods, over-the-counter medications, basic apparel, electronic accessories, hardware, tools, and automotive products.

The first store opened in 2002 and it is managed by Sammy Patel, one of its owners. The company now operates a network of 12 stores spread throughout Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. The partners are considering opening other branches in other parts of the state and eventually expand nationwide through franchises after 2020.

One of the products sold by PK Village is a general use lubricant sourced from a factory in Malaysia and packed under the PK Village private label.

Ms. Patel has noticed that, over the past year, the company has experienced frequent shortages of this SKU, resulting in lost sales as well as periods of excess inventory.

Ami places orders for this product every month and is considering implementing a routine methodology to estimate future demand for this product.

The demand for this SKU during the past five years is shown in the table below:

Month	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018
Jan	211	244	291	323	328
Feb	338	403	386	478	510
Mar	191	213	335	327	310
Apr	192	244	278	327	346
May	138	153	159	211	261
Jun	148	195	209	342	296
Jul	205	231	205	288	394
Aug	244	327	364	374	331
Sep	164	337	263	304	305
Oct	200	247	280	337	300
Nov	205	234	282	304	322
Dec	229	438	273	357	369

Ms. Patel has retained your services to recommend a forecasting methodology to estimate the demand of generic lubricant. Your document should contain:

1. Analysis of the historical data series, including identification of seasonality
2. must briefly describe the situation faced by Ms. Patel, list key assumptions underlying the analysis