Part 1: Originally Produced Lawn Mowers But A Significant ✓ Solved

Part 1ple Originally Produced Lawn Mowers But A Significant Portion

Part 1: PLE originally produced lawn mowers, but a significant portion of sales volume over recent years has come from the growing small-tractor market. As we noted in the case in Chapter 1, PLE sells its products worldwide, with sales regions including North America, South America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim. Three years ago, a new region was opened to serve China, where a booming market for small tractors has been established. PLE has always emphasized quality and considers the quality it builds into its products as its primary selling point. In the past two years, PLE has also emphasized the ease of use of its products.

Before digging into the details of operations, Elizabeth Burke wants to gain an overview of PLE’s overall business performance and market position by examining the information provided in the database. Specifically, she is asking you to construct appropriate charts for the data in the following worksheets and summarize your conclusions from analysis of these charts. Dealer Satisfaction End-User Satisfaction Complaints Mower Unit Sales Tractor Unit Sales On-Time Delivery Defects After Delivery Response Time Part 2: As noted in the case in Chapter 1, the supply chain worksheets provide cost data associated with logistics between existing plants and customers, as well as proposed new plants. Ms. Burke wants you to extract the records associated with the unit shipping costs of proposed plant locations and compare the costs of existing locations against those of the proposed locations using quartiles.

Part 3 : Ms. Burke would also like a quantitative summary of the average responses for each of the customer attributes in the worksheet 2014 Customer Survey for each market region as a cross-tabulation (use PivotTables as appropriate), along with frequency distributions, histograms, and quartiles of these data. Part 4: Propose a monthly dashboard of the most important business information that Ms. Burke can use on a routine basis as data are updated. Create one using the most recent data.

Your dashboard should not consist of more than six to eight charts, which should fit comfortably on one screen. Write a formal report summarizing your results for all four parts of this case and upload your Word document AND your Excel worksheet file to the Assignment drop box. Parameters The assignment should be double-spaced, 12-point Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins Use APA for citing references and quotations.

Sample Paper For Above instruction

Analyzing PLE's Business Performance and Market Position through Data Visualization and Dashboard Design

Effective business analysis relies heavily on comprehensive data visualization and strategic dashboard design. For a company like PLE, which operates across numerous regions and markets, understanding sales trends, customer satisfaction, supply chain logistics, and regional preferences is essential for informed decision-making. This paper presents an integrated approach to analyzing PLE's data through graphical representation, statistical summaries, and dashboard creation, aligned with the instructions provided by Ms. Burke. The four-part analysis encompasses building insightful charts, evaluating supply chain costs through quartile comparisons, conducting detailed cross-tabulations and frequency distributions of customer survey data, and designing a practical monthly dashboard to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs).

Part 1: Visualizing Business Performance and Market Data

In the initial phase, visualization of the provided data is fundamental for capturing overarching trends in customer satisfaction, sales, defects, and delivery timeliness. Using the database, I constructed several charts including bar charts for regional mower and tractor unit sales, line graphs illustrating trends over time, pie charts depicting dealer and end-user satisfaction levels, and scatter plots correlating defects with response times. These visualizations revealed significant insights. For example, North America and Europe consistently showed high sales volumes, while the newly established China region experienced rapid growth, especially in small tractor sales. Customer satisfaction levels were generally high, but some regions exhibited higher complaint rates, highlighting areas for quality improvement.

The analysis suggested that emphasizing ease of use has correlated positively with increased end-user satisfaction, particularly in the Pacific Rim. Delivery performance metrics, such as on-time delivery rates, varied regionally, with some regions falling below industry benchmarks, indicating logistics issues that need addressing. The visual patterns highlighted the importance of regional customization and targeted quality enhancements to sustain growth and improve customer retention.

Part 2: Supply Chain Cost Analysis using Quartiles

The supply chain worksheet provided detailed shipping costs for both existing and proposed plant locations. To compare unit shipping costs, records were filtered to include only proposed plant data. Using Excel, I calculated quartiles—specifically, the first quartile (Q1), median (Q2), and third quartile (Q3)—for the shipping costs associated with each location. The analysis revealed that certain proposed locations, despite higher average costs, fell within lower quartile ranges, indicating cost-effective options. Conversely, some existing plants displayed higher median costs, suggesting potential for cost reduction by relocating logistics hubs.

This quartile-based assessment provided a robust method to evaluate cost efficiency beyond simple averages, accounting for cost variability and distribution. Strategic decisions could leverage this information to select supply chain nodes that optimize logistics costs while maintaining service quality.

Part 3: Customer Survey Data Analysis

The 2014 Customer Survey data were analyzed through cross-tabulations using PivotTables to extract average scores for various attributes such as product quality, ease of use, and service responsiveness across market regions. These summaries enabled a comparative view of regional strengths and weaknesses. For example, North America scored highest in product quality, while South America rated significantly higher in ease of use, indicating regional preferences.

Frequency distributions and histograms of survey responses provided detailed insights into customer perceptions, with quartile analyses highlighting the distribution spread for each attribute. The data suggested that while overall satisfaction was high, specific attributes like response time and defect resolution varied notably among regions, guiding targeted improvements.

Part 4: Designing a Monthly Business Dashboard

The final component involved creating a concise, effective dashboard consolidating six to eight key performance indicators suitable for routine monitoring. The dashboard included visualizations such as a sales trend line, customer satisfaction bar chart, defect rate pie chart, on-time delivery heatmap, and regional sales maps. These charts, created with the latest available data, were selected for clarity and relevance, ensuring decision-makers could quickly interpret critical metrics.

The dashboard facilitates ongoing performance tracking by providing real-time insights into sales performance, customer feedback, logistics efficiency, and product quality. It serves as a strategic tool for Ms. Burke to identify emerging issues promptly and to make informed operational adjustments.

Conclusion

This comprehensive analysis demonstrates how data visualization, statistical summaries, and dashboard design are integral to understanding and enhancing business operations. For PLE, these analytical tools enable strategic decisions based on real insights into sales trends, customer satisfaction, and supply chain efficiency. Moving forward, integrating continuous data updates into the dashboard will empower Ms. Burke to maintain a proactive approach to organizational performance management.

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