Case Study 1: The AFL Grand Final
The AFL Grand Final is an annual Australian rules football match, traditionally held on the final Saturday in September at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne, Australia, to determine the Australian Football League (AFL) premiers for that year. The game has become significant to Australian culture, spawning a number of traditions and surrounding activities which have grown in popularity since the interstate expansion of the Victorian Football League in the 1980s and the subsequent creation of the national AFL competition in the 1990s. The 2006 Sweeney Sports Report concluded that the AFL Grand Final has become Australia’s most important sporting event, with the largest attendance, metropolitan television audience and overall interest of any annual Australian sporting event. The winning club of the grand final receives the AFL’s premiership cup and the premiership flag.
Please note that from this point onward all names, information, and data are fictitious.
The AFL Commission received many complaints from fan in 2018 such as ‘difficult to find parking space’; ‘seat were not clean’; ‘no sufficient security staff’, etc. The Commission’s chairman asked his deputy to further investigate about these complaints and return with a report on how this issue should be resolved. The deputy then conducted a survey of 200 random fans. In the survey the respondents were asked to answer to sets of questions which includes five-point Likert scale questions and one open-ended question (See Table 1).
| Based on your experience in AFL Grand Final how do you rate the following areas? | ||||||
| 0= Very Poor; 4 = Very Good | ||||||
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Ticket Price | ||||||
| Entertainment | ||||||
| Selection of Food | ||||||
| Availability of Parking | ||||||
| Catalogue | ||||||
| Seating | ||||||
| Service Efficiency | ||||||
| Traffic | ||||||
| What if your age? | Less than 22 yrs old | |||||
| Between 23 and 33 | ||||||
| More than 34 yrs old | ||||||
| Please put your comments in below cell (open-ended question):
|
||||||
Table 1 Survey Questionnaire
After conducting the survey the following for Section 1 of the survey were collected.
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | ||
| Ticket Price | 55 | 51 | 57 | 29 | 8 | |
| Entertainment | 10 | 18 | 66 | 54 | 52 | |
| Selection of Food | 12 | 22 | 39 | 59 | 68 | |
| Availability of Parking | 15 | 23 | 51 | 49 | 62 | |
| Catalogue | 66 | 52 | 59 | 14 | 9 | |
| Seating | 79 | 55 | 48 | 10 | 8 | |
| Service Efficiency | 87 | 60 | 32 | 15 | 6 | |
| Traffic | 60 | 50 | 48 | 31 | 11 | |
| What if your age? | Less than 22 yrs old | 50 | ||||
| Between 23 and 33 | 95 | |||||
| More than 34 yrs old | 55 | |||||
Table 2: Collected data
Also for the open-ended question the following feedback were collected:
| Parking a mess | Seats are uncomfortable |
| Toilets weren’t clean | Music was terrific |
| Hate the bleacher seats | Seats are all metal |
| More hot dog stands | Took an hour to park |
| Lines are awful | Get a new stadium |
| Bigger parking space | Double the parking attendants |
| Expensive | Seats not comfortable |
| Great! | Seats too small |
| Dirty toilets | Cold coffee served at game |
| Everything is great | Move games to Sydney |
| I want fine seats | Not enough cops for traffic |
| Parking terrible | Everything is okay |
| Smell of drugs | Hot dogs cold |
| Game starts too late | Need new band |
| Not enough handicap spots in lot | I’m too old for bench seats |
| Seats are like rocks | Expand parking lots |
| More water tabs | Hire more traffic cops |
| Put in bigger seats | build it! |
| Seats too narrow | Not enough police |
| Better seats | Softer seat please |
| I will pay more for better view | Too crowded |
| $3 for a coffee? No way! | Stadium is old |
| Great food | Build new stadium |
| Need better seats |
Table 3: Comments received for open-ended questions
Discussion Questions
- Using Pareto Analysis and Cause-and-Effect Diagrams analyse the data and present your conclusions about the source of dissatisfaction among AFL fans.
- How would the results of survey differ depending on the type of data (Likert scale and open-ended comments)?
- Could the survey have been more useful? What further analyses can be done using the collected data? What is the next step?
Hint: You need to quantify the available data
Case Study 2: Notex Manufacturing (10 marks)
Notex Manufacturing makes various batteries used in mobile devices. The company has a major customer so batteries are shipped in bulk to this customer. The company also distributes these batteries to retail stores as replacement parts. The batteries are packaged individually to retail stores. In all, the company makes about 15 different batteries. Currently, the company does not use any forecasting to predict the demand for the batteries. Instead, it has employed rule of thumb to decide about the volume of the production. This has caused some issues for the company including stock-out for some types of batteries or overstocking for some others. The other problem is an increase in the price of raw materials though the company believes it is a temporary condition. Due to complaints from suppliers and also customers the company has decided to introduce a systematic approach toward forecasting.
Therefore, the company has decided to forecast two most important products. The following table (see next page) shows the data on product demand for the two products from order records for the previous 19 months.
Question
Which forecasting method/s do you suggest for the two products? Briefly explain why? Forecast for the next month for each product. (Use MAD for measuring error).
| Month | Product 1 | Product 2 |
| Jan | 33 | 33 |
| Feb | 37 | 34 |
| Mar | 38 | 35 |
| Apr | 40 | 35 |
| May | 42 | 36 |
| Jun | 47 | 36 |
| Jul | 43 | 37 |
| Aug | 49 | 39 |
| Sep | 51 | 81 |
| Oct | 55 | 38 |
| Nov | 62 | 40 |
| Dec | 68 | 38 |
| Jan | 69 | 39 |
| Feb | 70 | 40 |
| Mar | 65 | 39 |
| Apr | 55 | 40 |
| May | 50 | 41 |
| Jun | 51 | 42 |
| Jul | 49 | 41 |
* Unusual order due to flooding of customer’s warehouse.