Industrial Engineering Chapter 4 Planning And Forecasting Discussion Questions Some Say Planning Has Primacy Among

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Chapter 4

Planning and Forecasting

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

4-1. Q: Some say planning has primacy among the managerial functions. Do you agree? Why or

why not?

4-2. Q: Develop your own model of the steps in the planning process

4-3. Q: Find the mission and vision statements for two large companies using their web page. Then

use the internet archive at archive.org to find these statements from 10 and 20 years ago. Have

they changed? Why do you think this is the case?

4-4. Q: Select a company or industry for which the strategic management of technology is

important. Describe some of the base, key, and pacing technologies that are important for their

strategic management of technology.

4-5. Q: Select a company or industry for which the strategic management of technology is

important. Describe some of the base, key, and pacing technologies that are important for their

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4-6 Q: Pick a company with which you are familiar and estimate from its actions what the

objectives of its management appear to be in each of Drucker’s eight “key result areas.”

4-7. Q: Briefly outline the concept of management by objectives (MBO) and the steps involved in

implementing this technique in organizations.

4-8. Q: For what types of employees or positions do you think management by objectives (MBO)

should prove particularly effective? Ineffective?

4-9. Q: For a given product and company (such as automobiles from Ford) list a set of premises

(assumptions) regarding such matters as the economy, competition, materials, labor, customer

4-10. Q: What length of planning horizon would you recommend for planning (a) the forest

resources of a large paper company; (b) construction of a new automobile plant; (c) creation of

a new housing development of 15 homes?

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4-11. Q: Create an extended list of the plans and decisions for a large manufacturing company that

will depend on the sales forecast for the next year.

A: Plans and the decisions underlying them that depend on the sales forecast might be divided

4-12. Q: Use the discussion of AAON to outline how another company you are familiar with might

manage technology to obtain a competitive advantage.

A: Student answers will vary based on their research or current work situation. All answers

PROBLEMS

4-1. Q: Sales of a particular product (in thousands of dollars) for the years 2015 through 2018 have

been 48, 64, 67, and 83, respectively.

What sales would you predict for 2019 using a simple four-year moving average?

(b) What sales would you predict for 2019 using a weighted moving average with weights of

0.50 for the immediate preceding year and 0.30, 0.15, and 0.05 for the three years before that?

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4-2. Q: Using exponential smoothing with a weight of 0.6 on actual values:

(a)

if sales are $45,000 and $50,000 for 2017 and 2018, what would you forecast for 2019?

(b)

given this forecast and actual 2019 sales of $53,000, what would you then forecast for

2020?

4-3. Q: In Question 4-2, taking actual 2015 sales of $48,000 as the forecast for 2016, what sales

would you forecast for 2017, 2018, and 2019 using exponential smoothing and a weight

based on alpha values of (a) 0.4; (b) 0.8?

4-4. Q: In Question 4-2, what sales would you forecast for 2019 using the simple regression (least

squares) method?