The information obtained from 5-17 is needed in order to solve 5-18 and 5-20. That is why they are all put together. Thank you!

5-17 Data collected on the yearly demand for 50-pound bags of fertilizer at Wallace Garden Supply are shown in the following table. Develop a 3-year mov- ing average to forecast sales. Then estimate demand again with a weighted moving average in which sales in the most recent year are given a weight of 2 and sales in the other 2 years are each given a weight of I. Which method do you think is better? YEAR DEMAND FOR FERTILIZER (1,000s OF BAGS) 4 1 2 6 3 4 4 5 5 10 6 8 8 7 7 YEAR 8 DEMAND FOR FERTILIZER (1,000s OF BAGS) 9 12 14 9 10 11 15 5-18 Develop a trend line for the demand for fertilizer in Problem 5-17, using any computer software. 5-20 Use exponential smoothing with a smoothing con- stant of 0.3 to forecast the demand for fertilizer given in Problem 5-17. Assume that last period's forecast for year 1 is 5,000 bags to begin the procedure. Would you prefer to use the exponential smoothing model or the weighted average model developed in Problem 5-17? Explain your