7. Maverick Jeans’ demand manager decided to evaluate exponential smoothing. To maintain comparability, the manager used the data from problem 6.

a. Use a starting forecast of 20 for month 4 to develop forecasts for months 5–12 and the first month of next year. Use smoothing constants (α) of 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8. Calculate the average forecast error and mean absolute error.

b. What observations do you have? How does exponential smoothing compare to the results for moving averages from problem 6?