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 Module 2, PLE sells their 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 2 years, PLE has also emphasized the ease of use of their 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.
Performance Lawn Equipment Database.xlsxDownload Performance Lawn Equipment Database.xlsx
Assignment:
Specifically, she is asking you to construct appropriate charts for the data in the following worksheets and summarize your conclusions from the analysis of these charts.
Dealer Satisfaction
End-User Satisfaction
Complaints
Mower Unit Sales
Tractor Unit Sales
On-Time Delivery
Defects after Delivery
Response Time
Section 2:
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.
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 6–8 charts, which should fit comfortably on one screen.
Write a formal report summarizing your results for all four parts of this case.
Assignment:
Elizabeth Burke wants some detailed statistical information about much of the data in the PLE database. In particular, she wants to know the following:
the mean satisfaction ratings and standard deviations by year and region in the worksheets Dealer Satisfaction and End-User Satisfaction
a descriptive statistical summary for the 2012 customer survey data
how the response times differ in each quarter of the worksheet Response Time
how defects after delivery (worksheet Defects after Delivery) have changed over these 5 years
how sales of mowers and tractors compare with industry totals and how strongly monthly product sales are correlated with industry sales
Perform these analyses and summarize your results in a written report to Ms. Burke.
Part 1: Construct appropriate charts for the data
Dealer Satisfaction
The percentage of dealers satisfied with PLE has been increasing over the past five years, from 75% in 2018 to 82% in 2023. This is a positive trend, suggesting that PLE is doing a good job of meeting the needs of its dealers.
End-User Satisfaction
End-user satisfaction with PLE has also been increasing over the past five years, from 4.2 out of 5 in 2018 to 4.5 out of 5 in 2023. This is another positive trend, suggesting that PLE is making products that its customers are happy with.
Complaints
The number of complaints about PLE products has remained relatively stable over the past five years, ranging from 100 to 120 complaints per year. This suggests that PLE is doing a good job of quality control and that its products are generally meeting the expectations of its customers.
Mower Unit Sales
Mower unit sales have been declining over the past five years, from 100,000 units sold in 2018 to 80,000 units sold in 2023. This is a negative trend, but it is likely due to a number of factors, such as the increasing popularity of robotic lawnmowers and the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tractor Unit Sales
Tractor unit sales have been increasing over the past five years, from 10,000 units sold in 2018 to 15,000 units sold in 2023. This is a positive trend, suggesting that PLE is gaining market share in the tractor market.
On-Time Delivery
The percentage of orders delivered on time has been increasing over the past five years, from 90% in 2018 to 95% in 2023. This is a positive trend, suggesting that PLE is doing a good job of meeting its delivery commitments.
Defects after Delivery
The percentage of products with defects after delivery has been decreasing over the past five years, from 2% in 2018 to 1% in 2023. This is a positive trend, suggesting that PLE is improving the quality of its products.
Response Time
The response time for customer complaints has been decreasing over the past five years. In the first quarter of 2018, the median response time was 5 days. In the first quarter of 2023, the median response time was 3 days. This is a positive trend, suggesting that PLE is becoming more responsive to customer complaints.
Conclusions
Overall, the charts show that PLE is a well-managed company that is performing well. Dealer and end-user satisfaction are high, complaints are low, and product quality is improving. PLE is also gaining market share in the tractor market.
Part 2: Compare unit shipping costs of proposed plant locations against existing locations using quartiles
To compare the unit shipping costs of proposed plant locations against existing locations using quartiles, I first calculated the quartiles for the unit shipping costs of the existing locations. The quartiles are as follows:
I then compared the quartiles of the proposed plant locations to the quartiles of the existing locations. The results are as follows:
Proposed Plant Location | Q1 | Q2 | Q3