PLEASE COMPLETE WORK IN EXCEL SPREADSHEET ONLY. SHOW ALL FORMULAS/FUNCTIONS TO SHOW ANSWERS AND EXPLAIN TO ME HOW YOU GOT THE ANSWER. DO NOT WRITE IT DOWN IN A PIECE OF PAPER.

Question: Dave Fletcher, GM of North Carolina Engineering Corporation (NCEC), thinks that his firm's engineering services contracted to highway construction firms are directly related to the highway construction business contracted with companies in his geographic area. He wonders if this is really so and if it is, can this information help him plan his operations better by forecasting the quantity of his engineering services required by construction firms in each quarter of the year?

Using the data on the right:

a. Develop a regression equation (in the form y=a+bx) for predicting the level of demand of NCEC's services

b. Determine the coefficient of correlation, r

c. Using the value of r above, what is the degree of relationship between sales and contracts released? Explain

Quarter	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Sales of NCEC Services (in $ thousands)	8	10	15	9	12	13	12	16
Contracts released (in $ thousands)	153	172	197	178	185	199	205	226