You are required to:

Analyze the data sets provided using appropriate statistical method or methods.

Each group is required to submit a typed report of the analysis.

a. Conduct an exploratory data analysis using SPSS, Microsoft Excel or any other statistical software package (explaining and interpreting) using a combination of frequencies / descriptive, crosstabs and graphs where appropriate.

b. Carry out further statistical analysis of the data.

c. Discuss the reasons you selected those statistical methods and the assumptions about the statistical method used.

At a minimum, your document should include or describe:

(1) the answer to the question(s) given with each data set,

(2) the method of analysis and why it is appropriate,

(3) the assumptions that underlie the method,

(4) a summary of the statistical results, and

(5) a discussion (interpretation) of the results.

QUESTION 1

The management team at Tyrich Industries is concerned about the overall costs of running its assembly shop. The team has cited six major sources of cost within the assembly shop and these have been recorded over a 32-week period along with overall cost in thousands for each week. These sources of cost are:

X1 = number of man hours worked (man)

X2 = number of machine hours (mach)

X3 = quantity of electricity used (kw) (elec)

X4 = number of items produced (prod)

X5 = quantity of gas used (therms) (gas)

X6 = number of different products being made (diff)

Y = Overall cost (thousands of dollars)

You are the Human Resources Manager on this team. Investigate which costs, if any, have a significant influence on overall costs and determine a suitable model for predicting overall costs.

	Man	Mach	Elec	Prod	Gas	Diff	Cost
1	159	90	98	331	1594	1	17
2	112	122	181	554	2217	2	120
3	169	98	64	436	814	1	7
4	164	98	77	397	1105	2	14
5	173	92	44	400	691	1	4
6	156	106	202	409	2710	2	85
7	196	121	57	591	670	1	6
8	154	123	95	588	1104	2	32
9	160	121	70	530	805	1	17
10	177	121	80	510	742	1	13
11	145	108	422	404	7553	1	264
12	139	110	51	423	732	1	8
13	130	99	193	369	2950	1	86
14	121	97	800	420	12592	2	670
15	137	104	471	396	6547	2	301
16	178	113	57	376	1092	1	19
17	155	120	56	461	801	1	12
18	166	99	108	394	1883	1	20
19	148	108	63	397	809	1	8
20	158	109	101	423	1304	2	45
21	176	103	89	324	1697	1	22
22	125	109	126	416	1274	1	26
23	161	108	63	420	966	1	14
24	138	103	51	383	827	1	9
25	149	106	87	419	1135	1	19
26	140	109	78	408	1134	1	11
27	119	94	69	453	918	1	15
28	141	107	61	396	832	1	11
29	142	106	135	416	2115	2	29
30	108	99	78	395	846	1	21
31	179	121	507	477	6426	4	191
32	126	96	1278	329	22053	3	1339

[20 marks]