CASE ASSIGNMENT PERFORMANCE LAWN EQUIPMENT

Performance Lawn Equipment (PLE), headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, is a privately owned designer and producer of traditional lawn mowers used by homeowners. In the past 10 years, PLE has added another key product, a medium-size diesel power lawn tractor with front and rear power takeoffs, Class I three-point hitches, four-wheel drive, power steering, and full hydraulics. This equipment is built primarily for a niche market consisting of large estates, including golf and country clubs, resorts, private estates, city parks, large commercial complexes, lawn care service providers, private homeowners with five or more acres, and government (federal, state, and local) parks, building complexes, and military bases. PLE provides most of the products to dealerships, which, in turn, sell directly to end users. PLE employs 1,660 people worldwide. About half the work-force is based in St. Louis; the remainder is split among their manufacturing plants.

In the United States, the focus of sales is on the eastern seaboard, California, the southeast, and the south central states, which have the greatest concentration of customers. Outside the United States, PLE's sales include a European market, a growing South American market, and developing markets in the Pacific Rim and China. The market is cyclical, but the different products and regions balance some of this, with just less than 30% of total sales in the spring and summer (in the United States), about 25% in the fall, and about 20% in the winter. Annual sales are approximately $180 million.

Both end users and dealers have been established as important customers for PLE. Collection and analysis of end-user data showed that satisfaction with the products depends on high quality, easy attachment/dismount of implements, low maintenance, price value, and service. For dealers, key requirements are high quality, parts and feature availability, rapid restock, discounts, and timeliness of support.

PLE has several key suppliers: Mitsitsiu, Inc., the sole source of all diesel engines; LANTO Axles, Inc., which provides tractor axles; Schorst Fabrication, which provides subassemblies;Cuberillo, Inc, supplier of transmissions; and Specialty Machining, Inc., a supplier of precision machine parts.

Elizabeth Burke has recently joined the PLE management team to oversee production operations. She has reviewed the types of data that the company collects and has assigned you the responsibility to be her chief analyst in the coming weeks.

In meeting with PLE's human resources director, Elizabeth discovered a concern about the high rate of turnover in its field service staff. Seniors managers have suggested that the department look closer at its recruiting policies, particularly to try to identify the characteristics of individuals that lead to greater retention. However, in a recent staff meeting, HR managers could not agree on these characteristics. Some argued that years of education and grade point averages were good predictors. Others argued that hiring more matured applicants would lead to greater retention. To study these factors, the staff agreed to conduct a statistical study to determine the effect that years of education, college grade point average, age, gender, college graduate and locality when hired have on retention. A sample of 40 field service engineers hired 10 years ago was selected to determine the influence of these variables on how long each individual stayed with the company. Data are compiled in the Employee Retention worksheet.

QUESTION: Use techniques of regression analysis to assist her in evaluating the data in this worksheet and reaching useful conclusions. Summarize your work in a formal report with all appropriate result and analyses.

4.7 16 3.12 25 F Y N 4.5 13 2.96 23 M N Y 4.3 16 2.80 25 M Y N 4 17 3.57 24 M Y Y 3.9 16 3.00 26 F Y N 3.7 16 2.86 23 M Y N 3.7 15 3.19 24 M N N 3.7 16 3.50 23 F Y N 3.5 14 2.84 21 M N Y 3.4 16 3.13 24 M Y N 2.5 13 1.75 22 M N N 1.8 16 2.98 25 M Y N 1.5 15 2.13 22 M N N 0.9 16 2.79 23 F Y Y 0.8 18 3.15 26 M Y N 0.7 13 1.84 22 F N N 0.3 18 3.79 24 F Y NEmployee Retention YearsPLE YrsEducation College GPA Age GenderCollege Grad Local 10 18 3.01 33 10 16 2.78 25 M 10 18 3.15 26 M 10 18 3.86 24 E 9.6 16 2.58 25 F 8.5 16 2.96 23 M 8.4 17 3.56 35 M 8.4 16 2.64 23 M 8.2 18 3.43 32 F 7.9 15 2.75 34 M 7.6 13 2.95 28 M 7.5 13 2.50 23 M 2 4