BT1101: Introduction to Business Analytics AY 2017/18 Semester 2
CASE ASSIGNMENT 1 (15%)
Performance Lawn Equipment Case
This assignment is adapted from the Running Case on Performance Lawn Equipment in Evans. Please refer to page 60-61, 120 of Evans for a synopsis of this case. Read through the case synopsis carefully to understand the business context and the data that have been collected by the company before you attempt to solve the tasks in the assignment.
Data
The Performance Lawn Equipment excel file can be downloaded from the companion website (http://wps.pearsoned.co.uk/ema_ge_evans_bus_2/).
Tasks:
1) Understanding the data
i) You have been assigned to be the chief analyst for Elizabeth Burke in the upcoming weeks. To prepare yourself for this job, you will first review each worksheet to understand the data that is available for conducting your analytics work. As you review each worksheet, (i) identify the measures or variables (e.g. Country, Months, No. of Customers) for which data has been gathered in each worksheet, and (ii) determine whether the measures are categorical, ordinal, interval, or ratio. Summarize your findings using tables.
ii) To gain an overview of PLE’s customer satisfaction and sales performance across the years for each region, construct appropriate charts for the data in the following worksheets (Dealer Satisfaction, End-User Satisfaction, Complaints, Mower Unit Sales, Tractor Unit Sales) and summarize your conclusions from the analysis of these charts.
2) Analyses of Business Performance & Market position
Below is a table showing the prices for PLE products for the past 5 years:
Elizabeth wants to know the gross revenues by month and region, as well as world-wide totals, for each product using the data in Mower Unit Sales and Tractor Unit Sales. She also would like you to compute the market share for each product and region based on the PLE and industry sales data in the
Due Date: 19 Mar 2018, 5pm
Note. Type your answers using Microsoft Word and save your file as “C1_[your matric no].docx” (e.g. C1_A000001.docx). Save your R script as “C1_[your matric no].R”. Submit both your word document and R script into “Case Assignment 1 Submission” workbin in IVLE by the deadline.
|
Year |
Mower Price ($) |
Tractor Price ($) |
|
2010 |
150 |
3250 |
|
2011 |
175 |
3400 |
|
2012 |
180 |
3600 |
|
2013 |
185 |
3700 |
|
2014 |
190 |
3800 |
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BT1101: Introduction to Business Analytics AY 2017/18 Semester 2
CASE ASSIGNMENT 1 (15%)
database. Conduct the appropriate analyses, interpret your results and summarize your findings for her.
3) Analyses of customer satisfaction
Elizabeth wants to have a more detailed understanding of customers’ satisfaction with their products and services.
i) For a more detailed understanding of the End-User satisfaction and Dealer
satisfaction by regions and years, create a contingency table to display the number of responses to each level of the survey scale across all regions for each year for each worksheet (End-User satisfaction and Dealer Satisfaction).
ii) Create a contingency table to display the mean satisfaction ratings and standard deviations by year and region for each worksheet (End-User satisfaction and Dealer Satisfaction).
iii)Provide a detailed statistical summary for the 2014 customer survey data and briefly describe how customers rate the PLE tractors.
iv)Analyze what proportion of customers rate the company with “top box” survey responses (which is defined as scale levels 4 & 5) on quality, ease of use, price, and service in the 2014 Customer Survey worksheet, and how do these proportions differ by geographic region.
v) Analyze if there are any significant differences in ratings of specific product/service attributes in the 2014 Customer Survey Worksheet.
4) Analyses of the quality of its products
PLE collects a variety of data from special studies, many of which are related to the quality of its products, for e.g. the company collects data from functional test performance of its mowers after assembly; results from the past 30 days are given in the worksheet Mower Test. In addition, many in-process measurements are taken to ensure that manufacturing processes remain in control and can produce according to design specifications. The worksheet Blade Weight shows 350 measurements of blade weights taken from the manufacturing process that produces mower blades during the most recent shift. Elizabeth Burke has asked you to study these data from an analytics perspective, and summarize the findings to these questions.
- i) For the Mower Test data, what fraction of mowers fails the functional performance test (using all the mower test data)?
- ii) For the data in Blade Weight worksheet, what is the sampling distribution of the mean, the overall mean, and the standard error of the mean? Is a normal distribution an appropriate assumption for the sampling distribution of the mean?
iii)Is the process that makes the blades stable over time? Could any of the blade weights be considered outliers, which might indicate a problem with
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BT1101: Introduction to Business Analytics AY 2017/18 Semester 2
CASE ASSIGNMENT 1 (15%)
the manufacturing process or materials?
5) Analyses of supplier performance
The company collects data on supplier performance in terms of timeliness of delivery and number of defects in supplied items. Elizabeth would like you to conduct the relevant analyses and summarizing your findings to the following questions.
- i) Chart the proportion of on-time deliveries from 2010 to 2014 using the monthly data in the On-time Delivery worksheet. Has the proportion of on- time deliveries in 2014 significantly improved since 2010?
- ii) Chart the number of Defects After Delivery from 2010 to 2014 using the monthly data in the Defects After Delivery worksheet. Has the number of defects after delivery changed significantly over the past 5 years?
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