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Fall 2021
IE323 – PRODUCTION & SERVICE OPERATIONS PLANNING I
CASE STUDY II
Due Date: January 28, 2022, at 17:00
You can work in groups of three.

Tasch Ice Cream is one of the leading ice cream producers in Turkey. The firm decided to
consider expanding their production capacity by building additional factories due to the
increasing ice-cream consumption. The construction of the additional factories is to be
finished by the end of 2022. In order to determine the locations and capacities of the new
facilities, the firm would like to forecast the ice-cream demand for the next several years. As
part of a forecasting project initiated, the first task to accomplish is to come up with an
appropriate forecasting model and forecast the demand for 2022. Past quarterly sales data for
the 7 customer regions in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 are given in the excel file
“CaseStudy2_DemandData.xlsx”.

a. Select an appropriate forecasting model for the demand of each region (in tons of ice-
cream). Try different smoothing constant combinations and report your trials to have
appropriate forecasting model. Justify your selection by using different performance
measures.

b. Select an appropriate forecasting model for the aggregate demand (in tons of ice-cream).
Try different smoothing constant combinations and report your trials to have appropriate
forecasting model. Justify your selection by using different performance measures.

c. Compare the accuracy of your forecasting models for the individual regions with the model
for the aggregate demand. How do the accuracy levels differ? Why?

d. Forecast quarterly demand values for 2022 for individual regions and the aggregate
demand.

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CASE STUDY GUIDELINE

FORMAT AND CONTENT

The main section headings should be numbered and written in capital letters. The subtitles should
be written in lower case letters and underlined. All pages should be given page numbers. Figures,
drawings, tables, pictures, etc. should be numbered and named appropriately. (Note that table
numbers and names appear above the tables, whereas those for figures lie below them.) In the
cover page, the title of this case, date and your team members’ names should be written. Please
write in Times New Roman, font 12 and with 1.5 spaces and use normal margins option under page
layout tab in your Word document. Do not exceed 10 pages excluding the appendices.
The report should consist of the following sections:
• Cover Page (title, course code, team members’ names, date)
• Table of contents (with corresponding page numbers)
• Introduction (involve what the reader should expect to find in your report instead of
summarizing only the problem situation given in the case question.)
• Main body of the report
o Explain the reasoning behind your selections
o Discussions about your findings
▪ Summarize the software (Minitab, etc.) outputs by using tables, figures or graphs
in the body of main text. Briefly explain how the software tools work.
▪ Discuss your results by mentioning important and interesting features. Analyse the
problem to see reasons that led to the current findings.
• Conclusions
o Considering all your findings and observations, make meaningful conclusions.
• References (list all the material referred to in the report text, if any)
• Appendix
o Include all data, tables, diagrams, drawings, etc. which are not directly relevant to the
main text in the appendix.
o Note that if you do not mention what you involve in your appendix in the main body of
your report, graders will not consider those parts.
CONDUCT
You can discuss the problem only within your teams, and if you feel necessary, with the teaching
assistants. Any kind of non-ethical behaviour (i.e., cheating) will be penalized.
SUBMISSION
Upload a zip folder consisting of your written report and the project files of all the software you
used to ODTUCLASS until the deadline. Please let only one of the members of each team upload
the file. Note that you are expected to provide the details of your work in your written report
instead of providing software files only. Software files are the proof of your own work, but you will
be graded by your reports.