Forecasting Exercise

A distribution center is looking at the value of forecasting packages processed per hour and what forecasting technique would best serve this purpose.

Exploring these questions, you have data from the first six hours of the day:

Hour Packages Processed

$1756$

$2787$

$3775$

$4791$

$5784$

$6810$

Complete the following table with forecasts and error analyses for at least three forecasting techniques other than the na$$ve forecast show. The shaded boxes indicate the time periods where you cannot forecast the packages processed

Forecasting Technique and Results

Naive $3-$hour Moving Average $3-$hour Weighted Moving Average$*$ Exponential Smoothing

$(\backslash$alpha $=0\mathrm{.}90$ and Hour $1$ forecast $=750)$ Trend Projection

Hour $2$ Forecast $756$

Hour $3$ Forecast $787$

Hour $4$ Forecast $775$

Hour $5$ Forecast $791$

Hour $6$ forecast $784$

Hour $7$ Forecast $810$

MAD $18\mathrm{.}40$

MAPE $2\mathrm{.}32\%$

$*$with weights of $0\mathrm{.}50$ for the most recent hour, $0\mathrm{.}30$ for two hours ago, and $0\mathrm{.}20$ for three hours