1. You currently work for a firm that manufactures lawn equipment, & are in charge of assessing quality of customer service. Your firm serves 5 main markets (North America, South America, Europe, the Pacific Islands, & China). The firm has 2 main lines of business (mowers & tractors) with monthly sales are shown in excel tab ‘Question 1’. You also have data on the # of customer complaints (in total & for each region) also noted in the ‘Question 1’ tab. Your task is to assess the situation via the construction of the appropriate control chart(s) to determine what, if anything, the firm needs to address. As a hint, you can use the 2008 data as your baseline for chart construction (for China, you can use the 2010 data).

2. You’re tasked to inspect the production process for any issues with an emphasis on the actual weight of the blade that’s produced for the lawn mower. The blade weight data is provided in the excel tab ‘Question 2’ & shows the recent production output. The firm has used a SPC chart that was developed when the process was stable & was established with the parameters of the process mean (x-2bar) being 5 lbs & the process moving range (mR) being 0.12 lbs. Given this, construct the appropriate control chart & assess the current state of affairs of the production process.

3. Focus on the blade weight from Q2 above, it has been determined that the mower will function as designed if the blade weight stays within a specified range. The noted range is a 10% leeway from the design weight of 5 lbs. Therefore, the specification for the weight is 5 lbs plus/minus 0.5 lbs. Knowing this & having the full process data (see ‘Question 2’ tab), make an assessment of the process capability.