The data in the Soft Drink Sales.xlsx file represent quarterly sales (in millions of dollars) for a large soft drink company from quarter 1 of 1992 through quarter 1 of 2007. As we might expect, there...

The data in the Soft Drink Sales.xlsx file represent quarterly sales (in millions of dollars) for a large soft drink company from quarter 1 of 1992 through quarter 1 of 2007. As we might expect, there has been an upward trend in sales during this period, and there is also a fairly regular seasonal pattern, as shown in Figure 16.43. Sales in the warmer quarters, 2 and 3, are consistently higher than in the colder quarters, 1 and 4. How well can Winters’ method track this upward trend and seasonal pattern?

Objective To use Winters’ exponential smoothing method to track the upward trend and regular seasonal pattern in the company’s quarterly soft drink sales.