IS102

Computer as an Analysis Tool

Week 11: CAT Review

Instructor:
Associate Professor Guo Zhiling
School of Information Systems
zhilingguo@smu.edu.sg

Agenda Today
Lesson Outcome

Quiz 2
Review on Assignment 2 questions
Sampling data and simulation
Autofilters and conditional formatting

Exercises
YankeeFruits.xls (chapter 6)
Review of earlier exercises

YankeeFruits.xls
Goal: to help Paul decide how many melons to
purchase weekly to satisfy different service levels
Four methods

Frequency Bins & Lookup() function

CRF of raw data & Lookup() function
Percentile() function
NORMINV() function, assuming demand is normal

Which method is the best?

Autofilters
Autofilters allow us to filter a large number of records
using automatically created filtering criteria
Place the active cell anywhere within the list and select
Data Filter
Pull-down menus with filtering criteria will be
created next to each column headers
Filtering criteria include:

Sort A to Z
Sort Z to A
Sort by Color
Text Filters
Number Filters
Date Filters

Using Data - Filter

Depending on the type of data in the column
Text Filter
Number Filter
Date Filter

A quick an easy way to find and work with a subset

of data in a range
A filtered range displays only the rows that meet the
criteria
Conditions are specified to limit which records are included in
the result set

Unlike sorting, filtering does not rearrange a range

Filtering temporarily hides rows you do not want to display

Auto Filter
Shows the highest/lowest 10 items or
highest/lowest 10 percent items that can
be computed in some form of measurable
units (numbers or dates)
When more than 10 items satisfy the
criteria, all items that satisfy the criteria
will be displayed

Allows us to customize filter with up

to 2 criteria combined by AND or OR
operators
Allows us to use wildcards such as ?
and *

Key Excel Functions

Lookup, Vlookup, Index and Match
Use IF and nested IF functions to return a
conditional value
Count, Countif, Frequency
Sum, Sumif, Round, Roundup, Int
Time and Date Functions
TRENDLINE, Slope, Intercept Functions
Solver and Goal Seek
Data Table and sensitivity analysis
RAND, RANDBETWEEN and their application in
queuing model and simulation

Key Excel Exercises

Goal seek and solver
F1 NightCityRace (Chapter 2)

Solver optimization with constraints

EchoOfficeSupplies (Chapter 3)

Financial functions and Data Table

TimeValue (Chapter 4)

Data sampling
DataSim (Chapter 6)

Simulation
XDBbank (Chapter 7)
Multiple servers

Final Project Presentation

Requirement
All team members must present

Time distribution
20 mins presentation
5-10 mins Q&A

Focus on the solution delivery

Demonstrate the working system in excel

Show your analyses
Summarize findings
Draw managerial conclusions