Business Modeling Essay Example for Free

Business Modeling Essay Ted Ralley is working on conducting a forecast for the upcoming year for an automobile part company. The data that will be used for this research has been collected from the quarterly sales from the previous four years. Ted wants to determine what is most accurate way to determine the forecast for 2008. The model should also help determined if the economic situation and oil prices are affecting significantly the sales of the company. The two models that were provided were thoroughly analyzed to determine which model was the most appropriate to utilize. These models were a regression model with factors, seasons and an additive Holt-Winters model. The forecasts also show that there is a significant change in the sales with the economic hardship and oil prices. It was concluded that the Regression with Econometric Variables would be the best method to use to forecast the sales for 2008, estimating a 255,927,955 for that year. Background With the economy continuously deteriorating everyone seems to be getting hurt financially, even the automotive industry, which has deepening the economic recession. Automotive part suppliers continued to experience heavy debt and overcapacity caused by production cuts by automakers, specifically including the big 3 (Ford Motor Company, General Motors and Chrysler). The suppliers  are also being pressed by higher energy and input materials’ costs. It has been determined by Industry analyst that automotive companies that accounted for more than $72 billion in sales have filed for chapter 11 protections in 2008. The number of Bankruptcies will continue to rise as the years go by. Domestically, Losing the big 3 to U.S affiliates of foreign- based manufacturers and imports in 2008 have caused a dramatic 50% drop in the market share. Most US suppliers are dependent on these three companies aforementioned. U.S suppliers are currently facing the challenge of penetrating automakers’ supply chains, mostly because these relationships have been long-established with home-market supplies. Ted Ralley is the director of a marketing research for a manufacturer of spare automobiles parts and it’s working on conducting a forecast for the upcoming year. Ted is aware of the forecasting errors and how costly they can be which is why these numbers must be as accurate as possible. In order to perform this forecast, Ted has collected the data on quarterly sales for the previous four years and ran several forecasts using time series forecasting methods. Ted noticed that economic activity and oil prices have impacted significantly the auto part sales and decided that the forecast will be more accurate using econometric variables. Problem Will the econometric variables be a better predictor of sales for the coming year, given the current economic activity and oil prices? Analysis This analysis consisted of the evaluation of the regression model with factors, seasons and the additive Holt-Winters method to generate an accurate forecast of how econometric variables have affected the Auto Parts industry. The analysis involved calculating the errors metrics for the three models (mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean square error (RMSE), MAPE and Theils’ U-statistics (U)) and comparing them against each other. The error metrics were calculated by using the formulas shown below: Table 1.1 Error Metrics Formulas: After studying the data provided it could be determined that there is an upward trend with obvious seasonality. Another factor that played a role in these regressions was the removal of the first two years in order to meet Holt-Winters method guidelines. The first regression was conducted using  Factors was generated by utilizing the data that provided by Ted Ralley from a large manufacturer of spare auto parts for automobiles. The data consisting of the quarterly sales for the previous four years was the dependent variables and independent variables consisted of Time, quarter 2, quarter 3, quarter 4. In this regression quarter 1 was removed in order to avoid over forecasting and binary coding was used to generate dummy factors. After the regression was completed, the independent variables were tested to determine their significance, which was done by performing a regression on the data through Microsoft Excel. Quarter 4 was removed from the model due to the fact that it was statis tically insignificant. This was determined by using backward elimination, which means, a variable that has a P-Value that is greater than .05, is considered insignificant and should be removed from the data and a new regression should be completed. The results from the new regression, shown below, have a P-Value less than .05 being sufficient to reject the null hypothesis (Ha). A very strong positive linear correlation between sales and all the independent variables combined with a 95.47%, leaving an unexplained variance of 4.53 is also demonstrated. According to the textbook â€Å"the most common measure of overall fit is the coefficient of determination (R2)†. Another important measure is the â€Å"standard error (Se), which is derived from the sum of squared residuals for n observations and k predictors† (Poane, Seward, 2013). A smaller Se Indicates a better fit, in this case the Se will be off by around 3.9 million. The coefficients used to run the forecast for 2008 are the following: intercept coefficient + coefficient time x time 1 plus coefficient q2* code for Q2 dummy variable for q2 + plus coefficient q3. Square error was used to find the magnitude of the error; the absolute value of the error to the sale s was found and then preceded to calculate to numerator. Numerator and denominator will be calculated in other to use Thiels’ U. Numerator was calculated as follow: difference between sales minus the sale of initial sale (difference q1-2 sales) /divided by q1 and squared. Bibliography Poane, D., Seward, L. E. (2013). Business Modeling Customized Readings for QNT5040. : Mc Graw Hill Education. Microsoft Office Excel. (2007). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation. Albright, Winston Zappe (2010). Business Modeling, Selections from 4e – QNT 5040 (4th ed.). Mason: Cengage Learning. Aczel,A Sounderpandian,J (2009). Complete Business Statistics 7th edition (592). : Mc Graw Hill Education. U.S. Automotive Parts Industry Annual Assessment. (2009, April 1). . Retrieved June 6, 2014, from http://trade.gov/mas/manufacturing/OAAI/build/groups/public/@tg_oaai/documents/webcontent/tg_oaai_003759.pdf

Of Mice and Men :: essays research papers

Of Mice and Men   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Of Mice and Men, which was written by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck, is a very clever and well thought out short novel. Steinbeck seemed to have a thing for the poor and struggling working class people of this country. His characters in this book are typical low class farm workers, yet they are very unique in their own ways. By the end of the book you feel for some of the characters while others you don?t give a damn about.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The one character that drove the story in Of Mice and Men and made it an unforgettable book was Lennie. The other characters like George, Slim, and Curley didn?t really have anything special or unique about them. There was something special about Lennie though. Lennie is mentally handicapped to put it lightly. He has got some major screws loose upstairs. Through out the book Steinbeck shows Lennie?s low IQ by how this character only thinks about one thing, and that?s that he hope?s George will let him take care of the rabbits when they get their own place, which never happens. Lennie wasn?t just retarded, but he was physically very strong. Lennie was a big and powerful guy. Unfortunately Lennie didn?t know that he was strong or big. All he thought about was the rabbits. Curley?s hand was crushed easily and his wife was killed accidentally by the pure strength of this huge guy. That is why Lennie was the character that made this book.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I think the one lesson John Steinbeck was most trying to get across in Of Mice and Men was that everyone needs somebody so they aren?t lonely. Other then George and Lennie, the other characters are all very lonely and are looking for someone or dreaming of something better. Crooks said it best; ? A guy goes nuts if he ain?t got nobody?. Crooks felt very alone all through out the book. No one liked him or talked to him because he was black. Curley showed he was lonely through his anger. He was always trying to pick a fight so others would pay attention to him. His wife would flirt with the other guys like Slim and Lennie because she was extremely lonely. Curley?s wife hated her husband, and was never given any attention by him. Being lonely is not a good thing and I think that is a lesson Mr.

Music Festival Essay

â€Å" When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest † said Henry David Thoreau. Music was and still is a significant factor in almost every culture in the world. It is a form of art that can life the soul, or even heals a patient through music therapy. A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and often include other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines, performance art, and social activities, and even theme park rides such as the festival held annually in Abu Dhabi â€Å"Cream Fields†. Which is similar to the festival that I am going to be designing in this paper. The music festival I will conduct is going to be a rather modern based outdoor event, featuring DJs and live acts. The festival would have cartoon based theme, in which attendants would have to come dressed as cartoon characters of their choice, but no regular clothing would be allowed in, it’s either you come in costume or you get out. The idea is for the festival to be its own world for the weekend, and this would be achieved not only through the outfits, but even the stages would have cartoon decorations all around, making everything look colorful and cheerful. For each stage available, there will be a different cartoon theme for that stage, for instance the main stage would have the most famous of all, Tom and Jerry, and so on and so forth. The festival comers would feel as if they entered a world of childhood, making them forget about all the troubles in the world, and simply enjoy their time as much as they could. They can enjoy refreshments and food, along with special live acts where mimics of famous cartoons will be performed in between one artist and another. Unfortunately for the adolescents, there will be an entry age of 21 and above, all under the age of 21 would not be allowed in due to the consumption of alcohol in the region. The type of music that will be played at this festival will be electronic music. Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. An electronic musical instrument is a musical instrument that produces its sounds using electronics. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical audio signal that ultimately drives a loudspeaker. It may include a user interface for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch, frequency, or duration of each note. This type of music can also be referred to as â€Å" Rave music â€Å". Rave music is what most people now call ‘dance’ music, or as some government wonk put it, music with a distinctive ‘series of repetitive beats’. Early ravers discovered that the combination of ecstasy and music with fast, repetitive beats was a marriage made in disco heaven. The term rave first came into use in Britain in the late 50’s referring to the wild bohemian parties of the time, and the crowds were and still are mostly young from all sections of society. The composition of this music is extremely complicated, and it requires years of practice and experience in order to master it, however, I will give a brief summary of the requirements. There isn’t a single â€Å"piece of equipment† that creates the music, it’s a joining of different elements that’s necessary to allow the creation of a full on song. The basic and most important instrument to create this music is the MIDI keyboard. A MIDI keyboard is typically a piano-style user interface keyboard device used for sending MIDI signals or commands over a USB or MIDI cable to other devices connected and operating on the same MIDI protocol interface. Not all MIDI keyboards are based on the piano style user interface. Many MIDI keyboard controllers have pads or buttons that also send MIDI signals, and most pads have a velocity sensing capability so that varying volumes of sound can be played. Then comes in the other pieces, for instance, the sequencer is where you control the audio sources and create the structure of your song, and the mixer is then used to set the levels. After the song has been finished, it is recorded and simply played through the DJ set on the stage. However, the DJ will be using a mixer and a sequencer in order to adjust the structure and the levels of the song, also to move on from one song to another without disruption, blending one song to another. The artists I have chosen for my festival are the following, starting from the first to perform to the headliner. Armin Van Buuren, Armin van Buuren, a Dutch trance producer and DJ. He is the number one ranked DJ having won DJ Magazine’s Top 100 DJs fan poll a record of 5 times, including winning 4 consecutive years between 2007-2010 and again in 2012. David Guetta, a French house music producer and DJ. Afrojack, who is a Dutch music producer and DJ. Skrillex, opening for the headliner is an American electronic musician and singer-songwriter. And finally, the headliner, Deadmau5, is a Canadian electro-house music producer, DJ, and performer based in Toronto. Deadmau5 produces a variety of styles with the house genre, or other forms of electronic dance music. The reason I have selected Deadmau5 to headline for such a cartoony festival is not only does his music suit the atmosphere, but also he comes in costume, as he always wears a big smiling mouse mask that does not fail to attract attention. Moreover, his stage is always colorful and full of energy, a perfect way to end the night at such a festival. The rest of the performers also provide energy to this theme, as it is a day where everything is cheerful, where everything colorful and happy, and this is aim of electronic music, to unite people from every nation, it does not limit anyone, and so do cartoons. That is the connection between my theme and the music being played, all are welcome, no culture, race, nor nationality is looked down upon, everyone is together, one love.

Essay on Perfect Body Image Has Changed Throughout History

How many of you have looked at an image of a model, and have mentally questioned why you dont look just as good? Im pretty sure many of you sitting here have done so. You realise that you feel very self conscious about your overall body image. Body image is defined as the way the person perceives themselves , physically and mentally. Our perception on beauty has been altered disturbingly, ever since media has played a role in society. When we look at celebrities, we generally idealise them , without processing the fact that they’ve been photoshopped, plastered in tons of makeup , used lighting and photographers and most obvious, had previous cosmetic surgeries. We’re completely oblivious to the fact that it is unattainable to be that â€Å"†¦show more content†¦Teenagers and children are a target, as they’re very easily utilised. They easily get teenager and children to buy their products, and by doing so they use advertisements as their idea. They are well aware that if they state in their products that it will improve their appearance, teenagers are more likely to purchase it. It is proven that models nowadays weigh 23% less than the average woman.Girls believe that to have the ideal body, you need to be toned and slim, wheres for guys being muscular is the definition of perfection. The problem starts to become much severe , when it ultimately leads to serious habits such as eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia and in most cases, suicidal attempts. Many young teenagers have developed eating disorders, as they sadly use unhealthy habits to manage their weight and that is through skipping meals, fasting, self- induced vomiting, and not to forget excessive exercise. People with anorexia tend to be very skinny, and as when they look into the mirror, they literally see excess body fat. Their minds have tricked them into believing they need to lose more weight to be able to look fit. Were all preoccupied with our bodies , and dissatisfied with our looks, that most of us are willing to try anything in order to obtain that perfect figure. The standards that are set are unbelievably high, as they’re unrealistic for what the ‘normal’ body figure should be.Show MoreRelatedThe Body Image And Advertisements1630 Words   |  7 PagesBody Image and Advertisements In roughly three decades, the number of advertisement exposed to consumers daily went from 500 in the 1970’s to as many as 5000 today (Johnson, 2006). Fashion advertisements often promote models that have an ideal body which is often models with thin bodies (Diedrichs Lee 2011). Consequently, these advertisements set unrealistic standards to the public (Yu, Damhorst Russell, 2011). Researchers have found that consumers are constantly comparing themselvesRead MoreThe Effects Of Media On Body Image1453 Words   |  6 Pagesthat media and body image are closely related. 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