Questions: 1) Forecasting

The NotAnimalLogo Company is in the transport business receiving container deliveries daily. Their business is unpredictable due to the economic slowdown in the region. They have recently learned that with the “exponential smoothing” forecast technique, it would help them to estimate their TEU requirements better.

Using the following table with historical data and an alpha of 0.25 (rounding all answers to whole numbers),

a) develop a forecast in the table below
b) calculate the Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) & Mean Absolute Percent Error (MAPE)
c) comment on the alpha for this forecast
d) research on a company that uses forecasting in their company and provide the write-up evidence (like the examples that were shown in the lecture)

Question 2) Transportation
In the transport topic of this module, discuss the following in 300-500 words each:

a) Name one other ship route in the world that has locks other than the ones discussed in the lecture ie. Panama Canal?

b) How do organizations decide to own or outsource their fleet of vehicles? Discuss the top 3 reasons and cite an example of each of the organizations owning and outsourcing their fleet.