Question description
The experiment data in below table was to evaluate the
effects of three variables on invoice errors for a company. Invoice errors had
been a major contributor to lengthening the time that customers took to pay
their invoices and increasing the accounts receivables for a major chemical
company. It was conjectured that the errors might be due to the size of the
customer (larger customers have more complex orders), the customer location
(foreign orders are more complicated), and the type of product. A subset of the
data is summarized in the following Table.
Table: Invoice Experiment Error
Customer Size
Customer Location
Product Type
Number of Errors
–
–
–
15
+
–
–
18
–
+
–
6
+
+
–
2
–
–
+
19
+
–
+
23
–
+
+
16
+
+
+
21
Customer Size: Small (-), Large (+)
Customer Location: Foreign (-), Domestic (+)
Product Type: Commodity (-), Specialty (=)
Reference: Moen, Nolan, and Provost (R. D. Moen, T. W. Nolan
and L. P. Provost. Improving Quality
through Planned Experimentation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991)
Use the date in table above and answer the following
questions in the space provided below:
1.
What
is the nature of the effects of the factors studied in this experiment?
2.
What
strategy would you use to reduce invoice errors, given the results of this
experiment?
