$.$ A small computer chip manufacturer wants to forecast

monthly operating costs as a function of the number of

units produced during a month. The company has collected several months of data in the file P$10\_42.$xlsx$.$

a$.$ Determine an equation that can be used to predict

monthly production costs from units produced. Are

there any outliers?

b$.$How could the regression line obtained in part a be

used to determine whether the company was efficient

or inefficient during any particular month?