While recent engagements had appeared to be going smoothly, recent client meetings have suggested otherwise. Clients have raised questions about the quality and timeliness of two key pieces of work that are typically completed by Sam's associates.

At the senior leadership level, consulting is primarily about client relations to maintain current accounts and generate new business. Given their ambitions to be promoted further, Sam sees this as an opportunity to display these client management skills by determining whether there is a problem with the quality of work and taking corrective action if needed.

Questions

The first major coneern is the amount of time clients are being billed for that is spent on associates developing slide decks$/$pitch books. To determine whether or not the curnent analysts are spending an appropriate amount of time on these tasks, Sam collected data on the number of hours spent on slide decks for $6$ different engagements for cach of the most necent $8$ weeks. Sam also collected historical data about the time spent on similar documents for a similar length of time two years ago before any client complaints had occurred. The data is available in the A$1.$StideDeck TimeSpent.xler Excel file.

$($a$)$ Which data is more appropriate for Sam to use to develop the limits for mean $($a$)$ and range charts? Provide some written justification for your choice,

$($b$)$ Using the A$2$ method, determine the appropriate control limits for both a nean $(\frac{?}{\text{b}\text{a}\text{r}}(c))$ and range $(R)$ charts. Plot the more recent observations on the control charts, and discuss any potential concerns. Address not only whether the process is in$/$out of control, but also any important patterns that you identify.