Huck L. B. Finn Incorporated buys plastic resin by the ton and then packages and distributes it in smaller amounts to industrial users. The resin typically costs $50 per ton, and Finn uses 80,000 tons each year. Placing an order for more resin costs $500 in allocated labor cost for purchasing personnel. Holding costs for the resin are estimated at 1 percent of the product value each month. Finn operates 365 days a year.

Finn received offers from two different suppliers. Supplier 1 delivers each order in one shipment. Supplier 2, on the other hand is flexible enough to deliver one shipment per day, with each shipment covering two days worth of demand. There is also a capacity limit of Finns warehouse, which can store only 1500 tons of resin at a time.

Below, you can find the monthly demand data from 2021 until July of 2023:

Year	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021	2021
Month	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Demand (tons)	5771	7444	6240	5509	6277	6331	7300	5692	7099	5222	5916	5648
Year	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022	2022
Month	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
Demand (tons)	6003	6211	7313	5449	5855	6628	6944	5375	5659	6699	5708	6040
Year	2023	2023	2023	2023	2023	2023	2023
Month	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
Demand (tons)	6855	6292	7098	5578	6233	5532	5149

Use an appropriate forecasting technique to update the demand data until December of 2024. Justify accuracy of your forecasting technique. (You need to try out at least two different forecasting techniques to be able to justify your chosen technique) !!PLEASE ANSWER SOMETHING ELSE THAN EXPONENTIAL SMOOTHING FORECASTING!!). What would be an appropriate inventory management strategy for Finn Incorporated based on the updated demand for the next year (in terms of order quantity and Re-order point)? State your assumptions as part of your recommendations to management.

Evaluation criteria (Max marks 10):

• Excel skills (8 marks): You are expected to use Excel for calculation and analysis. This may involve using statistics and analysis functions, implementation of formulas, plotting graphs, etc.

8 marks will be provided if a student submits the Excel file with all the functions, analysis, and graphs. An Excel file with randomized demand data is provided along with this assignment paper.

Copy and paste it to your own Excel file using Paste in number format to work with fixed numbers.

• Recommendation (2 marks): Based on your data analysis, and comparison of approaches, you may provide your recommendation. Your recommendation should also include exploring more advanced or additional techniques in the future, collecting additional data, additional information, etc.