BT1101: Introduction to Business Analytics

AY 2017/18 Semester 2
CASE ASSIGNMENT 1 (15%)

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.

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:

Year Mower Price ($) Tractor Price ($)

2010 150 3250
2011 175 3400
2012 180 3600
2013 185 3700
2014 190 3800

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
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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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