You have been assigned to forecast the number of aircraft engines ordered each month from an engine manufacturing company. At the end of February, the forecast is that 100 engines will be ordered during April. Then during March, 120 engines are actually ordered.
a. Using α = 0.3, determine a forecast (at the end of March) for the number of orders placed during April and during May. Use simple exponential smoothing.
b. Suppose that MAE = 16 at the end of March. At the end of March, the company can be 68% sure that April orders will be between what two values, assuming normally distributed forecast errors?