This application uses a forecasting methodology known as Exponential smoothing, in which the forecast for a period is based upon combining a percentage of the forecast for the previous period with the actual figures for that period. This percentage, called the smoothing constant, can take any value between 0 and 1, depending upon the weighting you wish to give the two factors. A value of 1 gives full weight to the actual data for the previous period, where as 0 gives full weight to the previous forecast. The constant is specified during the applications initialization phase.