The operation manager of a small animal surgery service in a rural Ontario town would like to forecast the demand for surgery services in the facility. The manager decided to use an exponential smoothing forecasting method. However, she is trying to decide whether to use a high or a low value of a for the exponential smoothing method. To make her decision, she would like to compare the forecast accuracy of high, medium and low values smoothing parameters on historical data. The facility has experienced the following historical monthly demand for the surgery service.

To get started, go to the Home tab and apply Heading styles to the headings in your document. \begin{tabular}{|c|c|c|c|c|c|c|} \hline Month & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 5 & 6 \\ \hline Demand & 33 & 35 & 32 & 37 & 36 & 34 \\ \hline \end{tabular} The manager has decided to use a smootining parameter of 0.8 for the high value, 0.5 for the modium valuc, and 0.2 for the low valuc. The mana demand in month 1 would be 34 surgery services. a) Forecasts demand for nonths 2 through using the three values of . b) Compare the accuracy of the values of a using the mean squared errors (MES). Which value of do you think would be better to use? Why? [ [Use months 16 to calcwiate MSE.] c) Forecast demand for month 7 with the most accurate value of x, d) [Chapter 17] For small animal surgery services, a computerized heart-lung machine must have a relibbility of 0.995. Two technologics arc available for the heart-lung machine: one produces a 0.9999 reliability for $50,000. Another produces a component with 0.90 reliability for $20,000. What is the most coonomical policy to attain the target degree of reliability: one high-reliability system or a parallel set of low-reliability degree of reliability: systems? Why