Question: Elizabeth Burke wants some detailed statistical

> The State of Ohio Department of Education has a mandated ninth-grade proficiency test that covers writing, reading, mathematics, citizenship (social studies), and science. The Excel file Ohio Education Performance provides data on success rates (defined

> Consider the data in the Excel file Nuclear Power. Use simple linear regression to forecast the data. What would be the forecasts for the next 3 years?

> Consider the data in the Excel file Consumer Price Index.a. Use simple linear regression to forecast the data. What would be the forecasts for the next 2 years?b. Use the double exponential smoothing procedure in XLMiner to find forecasts for the next 2

> Sandford Tile Company makes ceramic and porcelain tile for residential and commercial use. They produce three different grades of tile (for walls, residential flooring, and commercial flooring), each of which requires different amounts of materials and p

> Consider the prices for the DJ Industrials in the Excel file Closing Stock Prices. The data appear to have a linear trend over the time period provided.a. Use simple linear regression to forecast the data. What would be the forecasts for the next 3 days?

> For the data in the Excel file Gasoline Prices do the following:a. Develop spreadsheet models for forecasting prices using simple moving average and simple exponential smoothing.b. Compare your results to the outputs from Excel’s Data Analysis tools.c. U

> The Excel file Closing Stock Prices provides data for four stocks and the Dow Jones Industrials Index over a 1-month period.a. Develop spreadsheet models for forecasting each of the stock prices using simple 2-period moving average and simple exponential

> The Excel file Unemployment Rates provides data on monthly rates for 4 years. Compare 3- and 12-month moving average forecasts using the MAD criterion. Explain why the 3-month model yields better results

> The Excel file Energy Production & Consumption provides data on production, imports, exports, and consumption. Develop line charts for each variable and identify key characteristics of the time series (e. g., trends or cycles). Are any of these time seri

> Cluster the records in the Excel file Ten Year Survey. Create up to five clusters and analyze the results to draw conclusions about the survey

> Data in the Excel File Microprocessor Data shows the demand for one type of chip used in industrial equipment from a small manufacturer.a. Construct a chart of the data. What appears to happen when a new chip is introduced?b. Develop a causal regression

> For the data in the Excel file New Account Processing, perform chi-square tests for independence to determine if certification is independent of gender, and if certification is independent of having prior industry background

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file Treasury Yield Rates and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Use Excel’s filtering capability to(1) Extract all orders for control panels,(2) All orders for quantities of less than 500 units, and(3) All orders for control panels with quantities of less than 500 units in the Purchase Orders database

> Shafer Office Supplies has four distribution centers, located in Atlanta, Lexington, Milwaukee, and Salt Lake City, and ships to 12 retail stores, located in Seattle, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Tuscon, Denver, Charlotte, Minneapolis, Fayetteville, Birming

> Using the data in the Excel file Computer Repair Times, determine if the company can claim that its average repair time is less than 15 days

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file Prime Rate and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file Mortgage Rates and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Search the Conference Board’s Web site to find economic forecasts and reports about their business cycle indicators. Write a short report about your findings

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file Federal Funds Rates and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file DJIA December Close and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Choose an appropriate forecasting technique for the data in the Excel file Coal Consumption and find the best forecasting model. Explain how you would use the model to forecast and how far into the future it would be appropriate to forecast

> Apply cluster analysis to the Excel file Sales Data, using the input variables Percent Gross Profit, Industry Code, and Competitive Rating. Create four clusters and draw conclusions about the groupings

> Financial analysts often use the following model to characterize changes in stock prices:Pt = P0e(µ-0.5σ2)t+σZ√tWhereP0 = current stock pricePt = price at time tµ = mean (logarithmic) change of the stock price per unit timeσ = (logarithmic) standard devi

> The Excel file Olympic Track and Field Data provides the gold medal-winning distances for the high jump, discus, and long jump for the modern Olympic Games. Develop forecasting models for each of the events. What do your models predict for the next Olymp

> Construct an appropriate chart to show the proportion of funds in each investment category in the Excel file Retirement Portfolio

> The Excel file CD Interest Rates provides annual average interest rates on 6-month certificate of deposits. Compare the Holt-Winters additive and multiplicative models using XLMiner with the default parameters and a season of 6 years. Why does the multip

> Use the Holt-Winters no-trend model to find the best model to find forecasts for the next 12 months in the Excel file Housing Starts

> Use the Holt-Winters no-trend model to find the best model to forecast the next year of electricity usage in the Excel file Gas & Electric

> Create an Excel workbook with worksheet templates (similar to the Excel workbook Confidence Intervals) for one-sample hypothesis tests for means and proportions. Apply your templates to the example problems in this chapter. (For subsequent problems, you

> In the Purchase Orders database, conduct a Pareto analysis of the Cost per order data. What conclusions can you reach?

> Develop a multiple regression model with categorical variables that incorporate seasonality for forecasting housing starts beginning in June 2006 using the data in the Excel file Housing Starts

> Develop a multiple regression model with categorical variables that incorporate seasonality for forecasting sales using the last three years of data in the Excel file New Car Sales

> Develop a multiple regression model with categorical variables that incorporate seasonality for forecasting the temperature in Washington, D.C., using the data for years 1999 and 2000 in the Excel file Washington DC Weather. Use the model to generate for

> Set up an Excel worksheet to apply formulas (8.5) and (8.6) to compute the values of b0 and b1 for the data in the Excel file Home Market Value and verify that you obtain the same values as in Examples 8.4 and 8.5

> For the new-product model in Problem 9 of Chapter 11, suppose that the first-year sales volume is normally distributed with a mean of 100,000 units and a standard deviation of 10,000. Use the NORM.INV function and a one-way data table to conduct a Monte

> A recent MBA graduate, Dara, has gained control over custodial accounts that her parents had established. Currently, her money is invested in four funds, but she has identified several other funds as options for investment. She has $100,000 to invest wit

> Apply cluster analysis to the numerical data in the Excel file Credit Approval Decisions. Analyze the clusters and determine if cluster analysis would be a useful classification method for approving or rejecting loan applications

> Using the results of fitting the Home Market Value regression line in Example 8.4, compute the errors associated with each observation using formula (8.3) and construct a histogram

> Using the data in the Excel file Student Grades, construct a scatter chart for midterm versus final exam grades and add a linear trendline. What is the regression model? If a student scores 70 on the midterm, what would you predict her grade on the final

> Using the data in the Excel file Weddings construct scatter charts to determine whether any linear relationship appears to exist between(1) The wedding cost and attendance,(2) The wedding cost and the value rating, and(3) The couple’s income and wedding

> Use XLMiner and best subsets with stepwise selection to find the best model points per game for the National Football League data (see Problem 23).In Problem 23Use the p-value criterion to find a good model for predicting the number of points scored per

> For the Excel file Cereal Data, use XLMiner and best subsets with backward selection to find the best model

> The Excel file Investment Returns provides sample data for the annual return of the S&P 500, and monthly returns of a stock portfolio and bond portfolio. Construct histograms for each data set and use Analytic Solver Platform to find the best fitting dis

> Using the data in the Excel file Demographics, determine if a linear relationship exists between unemployment rates and cost of living indexes by constructing a scatter chart. Visually, do there appear to be any outliers? If so, delete them and then find

> Sort the data in the Excel file Automobile Quality from highest to lowest number of problems per 100 vehicles using the sort capability in Excel

> The Helicopter Division of Aerospatiale is studying assembly costs at its Marseilles plant. Past data indicates the following labor hours per helicopter:Helicopter Number __________Labor Hours1 ………………………………………………………………… 2,0002 ………………………………………………………………… 1

> Korey is a business student at State U. She has just completed a course in decision models, which had a midterm exam, a final exam, individual assignments, and class participation. She earned an 86% on the midterm, 94% on the final, 93% on the individual

> Suppose that a manufacturer can produce a part for $10.00 with a fixed cost of $5,000. The manufacturer can contract with a supplier in Asia to purchase the part at a cost of $12.00, which includes transportation.a. If the anticipated production volume i

> Cost functions are often nonlinear with volume because production facilities are often able to produce larger quantities at lower rates than smaller quantities. Using the following data, apply simple linear regression, and examine the residual plot. What

> Use XLMiner to generate a simple random sample of 10 records from the Excel file Banking Data

> For the House Sales data described in Problem 25, develop a regression model for selling price as a function of lot cost and region, incorporating an interaction term. What would be the predicted price for a home in either the South or the Midwest with a

> A national homebuilder builds single-family homes and condominium-style townhouses. The Excel file House Sales provides information on the selling price, lot cost, type of home, and region of the country (M = Midwest, S = South) for closings during one m

> Use the p-value criterion to find a good model for predicting the number of points scored per game by football teams using the data in the Excel file National Football League

> The Excel file Golfing Statistics provides data for a portion of the 2010 professional season for the top 25 golfers.a. Find the best multiple regression model for predicting earnings/event as a function of the remaining variables.b. Find the best multip

> Using the data in the Excel file Freshman College Data, identify the best regression model for predicting the first year retention rate. For the model you select, conduct further analysis to check for significance of the independent variables and for mul

> A consumer products company has collected some data relating monthly demand to the price of one of its products:Price ______________Demand$11 ………………………………………. 2,100$13 ………………………………………. 2,020$17 ………………………………………. 1,980$19 ………………………………………. 1,875What type of

> Using the data in the Excel file Airport Service Times, determine if the airline can claim that its average service time is less than 2.5 minutes

> A community hospital wants to estimate the body mass index (BMI) of its local population. To estimate the BMI with an error of at most 1.0 at a 95% confidence level, what sample size should they use? The standard deviation based on available hospital pat

> A community hospital wants to estimate the body mass index (BMI) of its local population. To estimate the BMI with an error of at most 1.0 at a 95% confidence level, what sample size should they use? The standard deviation based on available hospital pat

> An Oregon wine association wants to determine the proportion of west coast consumers who would spend at least $30 on Willamette Valley pinot noir at a 99% confidence level. If they wish to have an error of no more than 5%, how large a sample must they ta

> If a manufacturer conducted a survey among randomly selected target market households and wanted to be 95% confident that the difference between the sample estimate and the actual market share for its new product was no more than ±2%, what sample size wo

> An important part of planning manufacturing capacity is having a good forecast of sales. Elizabeth Burke is interested in forecasting sales of mowers and tractors in each marketing region as well as industry sales to assess future changes in market share

> In each chapter of this book, we use a database for a fictitious company, Performance Lawn Equipment (PLE), within a case exercise for applying the tools and techniques introduced in the chapter. To put the database in perspective, we first provide some

> For the data in the Excel file Accounting Professionals, perform a chi-square test of independence to determine if age group is independent of having a graduate degree

> A bank developed a model for predicting the average checking and savings account balance as balance = -17,732 + 367 × age + 1,300 × years education + 0.116 × household wealth.a. Explain how to interpret the numbers in this model.b. Suppose that a custome

> The background for this case was introduced in Chapter 1. This is a continuation of the case in Chapter 6. For this part of the case, propose and test some meaningful hypotheses that will help Ms. Drout understand and explain the results. Include two-sam

> The background for this case was introduced in Chapter 1. For this part of the case, use appropriate charts to visualize the data. Summarize the data using frequency distributions and histograms for numerical variables, cross-tabulations, and other appro

> Jamie Drout is interested in perceptions of gender stereotypes within beauty product advertising, which includes soap, deodorant, shampoo, conditioner, lotion, perfume, cologne, makeup, chemical hair color, razors, skin care, feminine care, and salon ser

> For the DoorCo Corporation decision in Problem 2, suppose that the probabilities of the three scenarios are estimated to be 0.15, 0.40, and 0.45, respectively. Find the best expected value decision.In Problem 2The DoorCo Corporation is a leading manufact

> What decisions should be made using the average payoff strategy in Problems 2, 3, and 4?In Problems 2 The DoorCo Corporation is a leading manufacturer of garage doors. All doors are manufactured in their plant in Carmel, Indiana, and shipped to distribut

> For Slaggert Systems decision in Problem 4, compute the standard deviation of the payoffs for each decision. What does this tell you about the risk in making the decision?In Problem 4Slaggert Systems is considering becoming certified to the ISO 9000 seri

> The Excel File Rin’s Gym provides sample data on member body characteristics and gym activity. Create PivotTables to find:a. A cross-tabulation of gender and body type versus BMI classificationb. Average running times, run distance, weight lifting days,

> For the car-rental situation in Problem 3, compute the standard deviation of the payoffs for each decision. What does this tell you about the risk in making the decision?In Problem 3Suppose that a car-rental agency offers insurance for a week that costs

> For the DoorCo Corporation decision in Problem 2, compute the standard deviation of the payoffs for each decision. What does this tell you about the risk in making the decision?In Problem 2The DoorCo Corporation is a leading manufacturer of garage doors.

> Find the 20th and 80th percentiles of home prices in the Excel file Home Market Value

> An online bookseller is trying to determine whether customers’ gender is independent of the genre of books they most often purchase. A sample of customers revealed the following:What can the bookseller conclude?

> For the Excel file Closing Stock Prices,a. Apply both column and line sparklines to visualize the trends in the prices for each of the four stocks in the file.b. Compute the daily change in the Dow Jones index and apply a win/loss sparkline to visualize

> Slaggert Systems is considering becoming certified to the ISO 9000 series of quality standards. Becoming certified is expensive, but the company could lose a substantial amount of business if its major customers suddenly demand ISO certification and the

> Suppose that a car-rental agency offers insurance for a week that costs $75. A minor fender bender will cost $2,000, whereas a major accident might cost $16,000 in repairs. Without the insurance, you would be personally liable for any damages. What shoul

> MJ Logistics has decided to build a new warehouse to support its supply chain activities. They have the option of building either a large warehouse or a small one. Construction costs for the large facility are $8 million versus $3 million for the small f

> Hahn Engineering is planning on bidding on a job and often competes against a major competitor, Sweigart and Associates (S&A), as well as other firms. Historically, S&A has bid for the same jobs 80% of the time; thus the probability that S&A will bid on

> Dean Kuroff started a business of rehabbing old homes. He recently purchased a circa-1800 Victorian mansion and converted it into a three-family residence. Recently, one of his tenants complained that the refrigerator was not working properly. Dean’s cas

> The DoorCo Corporation is a leading manufacturer of garage doors. All doors are manufactured in their plant in Carmel, Indiana, and shipped to distribution centers or major customers. DoorCo recently acquired another manufacturer of garage doors, Wiscons

> Perform a sensitivity analysis of the Midwestern Hardware scenario (Problem 18). Find the optimal order quantity and optimal expected profit for probabilities of a harsh winter ranging from 0.2 to 0.8 in increments of 0.2. Plot optimal expected profit as

> Midwestern Hardware must decide how many snow shovels to order for the coming snow season. Each shovel costs $15.00 and is sold for $29.95. No inventory is carried from one snow season to the next. Shovels unsold after February are sold at a discount pri

> The Excel file President’s Inn Guest Database provides a list of customers, rooms they occupied, arrival and departure dates, number of occupants, and daily rate for a small bed-and-breakfast inn during one month. Room rates are the same for one or two g

> Create a PivotTable for the data in the Excel file Weddings to analyze the wedding cost by type of payor and value rating. What conclusions do you reach?

> A patient arrives at an emergency room complaining of abdominal pain. The ER physician must decide on whether to operate or to place the patient under observation for a non-appendix-related condition. If an appendectomy is performed immediately, the doct

> Using the data in the Excel file Freshman College Data, use ANOVA to determine whether significant differences exist in the mean retention rate for the different colleges over the 4-year period. Second, use ANOVA to determine if significant differences e

> Bev’s Bakery specializes in sourdough bread. Early each morning, Bev must decide how many loaves to bake for the day. Each loaf costs $1.25 to make and sells for $3.50. Bread left over at the end of the day can be sold the next day for $1.00. Past data i

> For the car-rental decision in Problems 3 and 10, construct a decision tree and compute the rollback values to find the best expected value decision.In Problems 10For the car-rental situation described in Problem 3, assume that you researched insurance i

> For the DoorCo Corporation decision in Problems 2 and 9, construct a decision tree and compute the rollback values to find the best expected value decision.In Problems 9For the DoorCo Corporation decision in Problem 2, suppose that the probabilities of t

> For the car-rental situation described in Problem 3, assume that you researched insurance industry statistics and found out that the probability of a major accident is 0.05% and that the probability of a fender bender is 0.16%. What is the expected value

> Use the Outsourcing Decision Model Excel file to compute the cost of in-house manufacturing and outsourcing for the following levels of demand: 800, 1000, 1200, and 1400. Use this information to set up a payoff table for the decision problem, and apply t

> Refer back to the college admission director scenario (Problem 36 in Chapter 11). Develop a spreadsheet model and identify uncertain distributions that you believe would be appropriate to conduct a Monte Carlo simulation. Based on your model and simulati

> Develop a realistic retirement planning simulation model for your personal situation. If you are currently employed, use as much information as you can gather for your model, including potential salary increases, promotions, contributions, and rates of r

> A survey handed out to individuals at a major shopping mall in a small Florida city in July asked the following:• Gender• Age• Ethnicity• Length of residency• Overall satisfaction with city services (using a scale of 1–5, going from poor to excellent)• Q

> Discuss how you might use business analytics in your personal life, such as managing your grocery purchasing, automobile maintenance, budgeting, sports, and so on. Be creative in identifying opportunities!

> A government agency is putting a large project out for low bid. Bids are expected from 10 different contractors and will have a normal distribution with a mean of $3.5 million and a standard deviation of $0.25 million. Devise and implement a sampling exp