Scenario details
Dress Design is a small clothing manufacturer, specializing in creating custom, one-of-a-kind dresses. They exclusively sell their product through their online store.
Dress Design is run by a team of three staff members: Albert, Blanche, and Carol.
Albert and Blanche work together to manufacture dresses. Carol manages orders, sales and delivery.
Team hours
Most of the time, team members work the following shifts:
Albert works 7.5 hours on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; Blanche works 7.5 hours on Thursdays and Fridays; and
Carol works 4.5 hours every weekday.
Additionally, Albert and Carol share responsibility for managing the Dress Design social media presence, with Albert working one extra hour in the evenings on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and Carol doing the same on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Costs
Albert and Blanche, as skilled manufacturing staff, cost $26 per hour to employ. Carol, a part-time employee, costs $24 per hour to employ.
All staff are also entitled to four weeks of paid annual leave, during which a casual replacement is required at a cost of $39 per hour.
Fixed costs such as rent and insurance are $9100 per year, and utilities costs are $260 per month.
Task 1 – Costs of operating the business
Using Excel, create a spreadsheet called operating_costs.xlsx that calculates the projected annual outgoing costs of running Dress Design.
Your spreadsheet should be configured such that the working hours, hourly rates, and fixed and utility costs can be varied easily.
Document your findings in your ePortfolio page (approximately 100 words).
Manufacturing dresses
Dress Design receive requests through their online store, and Carol responds with a quote, after consulting with a member of the manufacturing team. If the customer confirms their order, Albert and Blanche manufacture the ordered products, and Carol organizes delivery.
Currently, the process for generating a quote is entirely subjective, based on the requested material and dress size. Staff members quote an amount based on their personal experience.
For several months, staff have been keeping track of the quote date, material, size, quote amount, and manufacturing cost for each order in a spreadsheet. As each product is hand-made, the manufacturing cost may vary between similar orders.
If a quote was not accepted by the customer, then manufacturing cost is not included. This spreadsheet is available for download on Moodle.
Task 2 – Order information
Using Excel, process the history of orders spreadsheet and use appropriate charts to visualize: How some aspect of quoting or manufacturing has changed over time; and
How the quote amount differed for each staff member.
You will need to find a way to use Excel to associate each quote with a staff member.
Describe your approach and your findings in your ePortfolio (approximately 250-400 words), and attach the Excel file to your page.
Task 3 – Price consistency
Using Excel, analyse the historical data you have available, and create a spreadsheet that allows a member of the Dress Design team to enter the dress material and size, and gives a quote amount.
Ensure that you include enough text and formatting to make your spreadsheet usable by a member of the Dress Design team (or by a University lecturer).
You may base your quote amount either on historical averages, or to ensure that Dress Design makes a profit.
Validate your quoting approach by applying your formula to historical data.
Justify your approach in your ePortfolio (approximately 150 words), and attach your Excel file to your ePortfolio.
Process improvement
The team want to improve their quoting process to reduce time spent waiting for customers to approve quotes.
They would like to start manufacturing immediately for orders that they might be able to sell in future, even if the customer does not go ahead with the order.
That is, they would like to change to the processes indicated in the following swimlane diagrams:
Task 4 – Process improvement
Extend your spreadsheet page from task 3 to automate the above processes, allowing a member of the team to enter the dress material and size, and in addition to the quote amount indicate whether to start manufacturing immediately.
It is up to you do determine how to determine which items are popular.
Justify your approach in your ePortfolio (approximately 150 words), and attach your Excel file to your ePortfolio.
Bonus challenge task (optional!)
Disclaimer: This task is 100% optional, and you can receive full marks without attempting or completing it. It is intended to be a challenge if you are interested in such things, and the marks available do not reflect the significant research and effort required to implement it correctly. Tutors will not provide significant assistance for this challenge task.
Optional task 5
Reimplement Tasks 1, 3 and 4 using either Python or HTML+JavaScript.
Write a brief overview of how to run your solution, and attach a zip file containing your code to your ePortfolio page.
There are no partial marks awarded for this bonus task – you must complete all features to attain the bonus marks.
