Rick Ramsey built a time series forecasting model to help Gilbarco
forecast monthly sales of its main product, gas dispensers. Gilbarco
sells about 900 dispensers per month through their core distributor
channel. The predictions from the Ramsey-built model will be used to
identify monthly material needs, reduce lead times, and increase
inventory turns. At $9,000 per dispenser, the savings should be
substantial.
 The
model was a Winter's smoothing model which accounts for cycle,
trend, and seasonality. Ramsey build the model from scratch using
Excel. He used Excel's Solver tool to optimize the three smoothing
parameters.
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