Activity 9.2
Capstone Case Study
Henry Clements Car Rental Agency
Henry Clements is a friend of yours who has a car rental agency in a major metropolitan area.
Although his is an independent company, Henry works closely with three other independent companies in the metro area. They share information and each week they forecast the number of cars each will need the following week. Then, if needed, they will transfer cars between locations on Sunday when none of the agencies are open. If they have to go and get a car during the week, it will cost $75 per car, considering the lost time and good will of making the customer wait. Moving on Sunday gives the customer the option to return the car to any of the four locations and it has allowed Henry and the other agencies access to extra cars to meet their needs. Everyone is happy with this arrangement. Henry reviewed his company’s performance and he believes there is room for improvement. He has obtained records for the last three months. The data he collected are shown below. It is Friday and he has to input his forecast for the number of cars needed tomorrow. He knows you have been taking a class in Quantitative Analysis and has asked you to review his data and help with his forecast to determine what else he might to do increase his performance. As you discuss the situation with him, you learn that he wants to be able to meet the customers’ requirement for a vehicle 95% of the time. He says he rarely ever gets complaints if the exact model is not available, as long as he has a vehicle available, so he does not try to anticipate particular size or model requests and lets randomness take care of that. Weekly demand is as follows:
Week | Demand | Week | Demand | 1 | 126 | 7 | 243 | 2 | 200 | 8 | 167 | 3 | 243 | 9 | 131 | 4 | 167 | 10 | 208 | 5 | 132 | 11 | 251 | 6 | 211 | 12 | 171 |
In the past Henry has used the average number of cars as his basic number