| | DSC 211 | | | Spring 2019 | | | BUSINESS STATISTICS II |
| | | | | | | | (Intro to Big Data and Business Analytics) |
| | | | | CASE 1: |
| | Green Valley Assembly (GVA) Company - Process Improvement Via Teaming |
| 1. Green Valley. |
| | | This company assembles consumer electronic products for major manufacturers. |
| | The quality of the assembly work is very important -- the major manufacturers will go elsewhere if Green Valley |
| | cannot produce high quality work. |
| 2. Process Improvement Efforts Using Teams. |
| | | The Operations Department of GVA has been encouraging the development of work teams and, |
| | within teams, building pride and cooperation towards team goals of high productivity at high levels of quality. |
| | Top managers believe (hope?) that these approaches will lead not only to better worker satisfaction but also to |
| | higher levels of productivity and quality. |
| | | For one area where GVA has been experimenting with these work team approaches, |
| | they have now just completed a six-month trial. There are several thousand employees involved. |
| | The purpose of this trial is to determine if team approaches lead to improved productivity, quality and satisfaction. |
| | The previous (before trial) key measures of productivity are as follows: |
| | Productivity Distribution | | | | | Completed Units/Hr: | 10 -11 | >11-12 | >12-13 | >13 |
| | for all workers: | | | | | Proportion of workforce: | 14% | 34% | 36% | 16% |
| | Average Productivity for all workers: | | | | | 12 completed units/hr |
| | Productivity Consistency for all workers -- standard deviation of completed units/hr: | | | | | | | | 1.55 completed units/hr |
| | The previous (before trial) level of quality (one key measure) for this work area is as follows: |
| | | Quality Measure 4: | | 12 percent rework |
| | | (percent of assemblies produced that were found to have some defect that required rework) |
| | The previous (before trial) measure of worker satisfaction is as follows: |
| | | Worker satisfaction is measured from the responses of workers to one question on a questionnaire |
| | given to workers once a year. The question is "What is your level of satisfaction with your overall job?" |
| | The responses are from a 7 point scale where 1 = very satisfied and 7 = very dissatisfied. |
| | The average satisfaction response score for all workers last year = | | | | | | | 3.5 |
| 3. Process Improvement Evaluation Study & Data Collected |
| | | Now, at the end of the six-month trial, another study of productivity, quality, and satisfaction is being |
| | undertaken. The regular year-end data collection can be used. One data set is based on a random sample |
| | of 50 workers involved in this experiment and precise measurement of each worker's productivity. A second data set |
| | gathered each year is a random sample of one key assembly (goes into most of our products) which |
| | is inspected for minor or major defects. Also, the same 50 workers from this experiment completed a worker |
| | questionnaire. Their responses to the "Satisfaction with My Overall Job" question are in the third data set. |
| | The data results may be found on the second worksheet. |
| | These data sets (from 50 workers and 123 assemblies) were collected to help answer the following questions |
| | about the new team-based production processes: |
| | | (1) Has the productivity distribution of all workers changed, and if so how? |
| | | (2) Has the average productivity of all workers changed? If so, how? |
| | | (3) Has the consistency of productivity of workers improved? |
| | | (4) Has the quality of all finished assemblies improved? |
| | | (5) Has the average satisfaction level of all workers improved? |
| | | (6) Does there appear to be a relationship between worker productivity and satisfaction? |
| 4. Assignment |
| | | Your team works at Green Valley in Operations. You have been asked to analyze the collected |
| | sample data to help answer the business questions above and write a business memo with your results. |
| | Use the following GVA format for your business memo. This memo is written to James Dunne, the VP of Operations, |
| | so clearly answer the business questions asked and keep most of the technical detail in the attachments. |
| | | | FORMAT FOR BUSINESS MEMO |
| | Use the Date, To, From, Subject memo format (Word has templates for memos you could use) |
| | Have the following sections of your memo: |
| | 1. Introduction. Explain the purpose of the study & provide the specific business questions you worked to answer. |
| | 2. Data. In this section, describe the sample data sources and data gathered. Refer to the attachments that |
| | | contain the complete data. Include descriptive statistics of the sample data in one or more tables and briefly |
| | | discuss. |
| | 3. Analysis Methodology. Briefly describe, in everyday business language, the methods used to analyze the data -- to |
| | | answer each question. Refer to the attachments for detail. |
| | 4. Analysis Results: |
| | | Provide one or more tables that show the first 5 questions, the previous values, a description of the sample, |
| | | the sample quantitative results, the p-value, and the business answer. (Note. See table template on another |
| | | tab of this file.) For question 6, provide a graph and your best business answer. |
| | | Provide a brief discussion of analysis results. |
| | 5. Study Conclusions & Recommendations |
| | | Brief summary of the study & the most important conclusions about the team-based production processes |
| | | that have been developed in the study. |
| | | Recommendations for management actions may be included. |
| | Attachments |
| | | Attachment 1 - 6. One page for each analysis (for the six questions) showing all work & explanations. |
| | | Identify any assumptions/conditions necessary to use the method & how you checked out the assumptions |
| | | Attachment 7. Provide all the raw data values. Provide explanations as needed. Define all units |
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Case1-GreenValleyAssembly-2.xls
