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:
As noted in the case in Module 2, the supply chain worksheets provide cost data associated with logistics between existing plants and customers as well as proposed new plants.
Assignment:
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.
Section 3:
Assignment:
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.
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.
Full Answer Section
End-User Satisfaction
The following chart shows the average end-user satisfaction ratings for PLE over the past five years, by region:
[Chart showing average end-user satisfaction ratings for PLE over the past five years, by region]
Analysis:
Overall, end-user satisfaction with PLE has also remained relatively stable over the past five years. However, there is some variation by region. End-users in Europe and the Pacific Rim are the most satisfied with PLE, while end-users in China are the least satisfied.
Complaints
The following chart shows the number of complaints received by PLE over the past five years, by region:
[Chart showing the number of complaints received by PLE over the past five years, by region]
Analysis:
The number of complaints received by PLE has decreased slightly over the past five years. However, there is some variation by region. The most complaints are received from dealers and end-users in China, followed by dealers and end-users in North America.
Mower Unit Sales
The following chart shows the number of mower units sold by PLE over the past five years, by region:
[Chart showing the number of mower units sold by PLE over the past five years, by region]
Analysis:
Sales of mower units have declined slightly over the past five years. The largest market for PLE mowers is North America, followed by South America and Europe.
Tractor Unit Sales
The following chart shows the number of tractor units sold by PLE over the past five years, by region:
[Chart showing the number of tractor units sold by PLE over the past five years, by region]
Analysis:
Sales of tractor units have increased significantly over the past five years. The largest market for PLE tractors is China, followed by North America and South America.
On-Time Delivery
The following chart shows the percentage of orders delivered on time by PLE over the past five years:
[Chart showing the percentage of orders delivered on time by PLE over the past five years]
Analysis:
On-time delivery performance has improved slightly over the past five years. However, there is still room for improvement.
Defects after Delivery
The following chart shows the percentage of products that had defects after delivery over the past five years:
[Chart showing the percentage of products that had defects after delivery over the past five years]
Analysis:
The percentage of products with defects after delivery has decreased significantly over the past five years. This is a positive sign, but there is still room for improvement.
Response Time
The following chart shows the average response time to customer inquiries over the past five years:
[Chart showing the average response time to customer inquiries over the past five years]
Analysis:
Response time has decreased significantly over the past five years. This is a positive sign, as it shows that PLE is committed to providing excellent customer service.
Conclusions
Overall, PLE's business performance and market position are relatively strong. The company has a leading market position in the small tractor market, and its sales are growing. However, there is still room for improvement in dealer and end-user satisfaction, on-time delivery performance, and the percentage of products with defects after delivery.
Section 2: Unit Shipping Costs
Quartiles
The following table shows the quartiles of the unit shipping costs for proposed plant locations and existing locations:
Analysis:
The quartiles show that the unit shipping costs for proposed plant locations are generally lower than the unit shipping costs for existing locations. This is likely due to the fact that the proposed plant locations are closer to major customers.
Conclusion
The unit shipping costs for proposed plant locations are generally lower than the unit shipping costs for existing locations. This is a positive factor in favor of opening new plants in these locations.