Illustrate business situations through graphs and tables.
This Assessment requires you to use Excel to answer the questions and create the charts as specified in the file below. However, when presenting reports in business, you will find that most managers will prefer to read Word documents or PowerPoint slides rather than go through Excel sheets. Being able to move your work from Excel to Word is a valuable skill. For this Assessment, prepare a report by copying all your charts and comments to a Word document and submit that Word file as your Assessment. Clearly label all questions and charts as well as your answers. Make sure to review your grading Rubric.
Using Data Analysis in Excel
Before any data analysis can be performed using Excel, the Data Analysis ToolPak must first be installed on your computer.
Question 1
According to T-100 Domestic Market, the top seven airlines in the United States by domestic boarding in a recent year were Southwest Airlines Co. with 81.1 million, Delta Air Lines Inc. with 79.4 million, American Airlines, Inc. with 72.6 million, United Airlines, Inc. with 56.3 million, Northwest Airlines Corp. with 43.3 million, US Airways with 37.8 million, and Continental Airlines with 31.5 million. Using Excel, construct a pie chart and a bar graph to depict this information.
Question 2
The U.S. Department of the Interior releases figures on mineral production. The following are the 15 leading states in nonfuel mineral production in the United States in 2008.
State Value ($billions)
Arizona 8.95
Nevada 6.48
Florida 4.2
Utah 4.17
California 4
Texas 3.8
Minnesota 3.72
Alaska 2.98
Missouri 2.58
Colorado 2.45
Michigan 2.96
Wyoming 2.37
Georgia 2.05
New Mexico 1.81
Pennsylvania 1.68
a) Using the appropriate tool in the Data Analysis ToolPak in Excel, calculate the descriptive statistics. Include the summary statistics table in your report.
b) Briefly define the meaning of each of the metrics in the summary report you get.
c) Comment on all of the figures in the report. What do you learn from these metrics? What are they telling you about this data set? Is it symmetrical, flat, or skewed? Does it have outliers?
Question 3
Suppose Procter & Gamble sells 20 million bars of soap per week, but the demand is not constant and production management would like to get a better handle on how sales are distributed over the year. Let the following sales figures given in units of million bars represent the sales of bars per week over 1-year (in no particular order).
a) Construct a histogram chart to represent the data using the appropriate tool from the Data Analysis ToolPak. Make sure to specify your own bin ranges otherwise Excel will automatically pick them for you and you will have very strange bin ranges with confusing decimal points. Make a list of numbers in multiples of 5, starting from 10 up to 40; then, show where the bin numbers are in the histogram dialog box.
b) Creating a chart is not useful in and of itself unless it is properly interpreted. Write a brief analysis of the graph. What do you see in the graph that might be helpful to the production and sales people?
17.1 14.3 17 25.2
14.4 12.2 11.9 26.3
15.4 10.9 12.8 13.5
17.4 21.5 39.8 30.6
15 20.4 20.7 25.2
13.8 20.3 21.3 26.2
20.6 13.8 22.5 26.9
18.4 23.6 21.4 32.8
20 19.1 23.4 26.3
20.9 20.4 23.1 26.6
11.1 15.4 14.8 24.3
12.5 20.3 21.4 26.2
14.7 24.4 24 23.8
