AAE/ECON 421: Economic Decision Analysis Final Project, Fall 2022

For your final project, you will be analyzing real world data to provide some analysis for a real world business. PickTrace (http://picktrace.com/company/) is a software company that helps specialty crop producers manage their employees and payroll systems. For your final project, PickTrace President Harrison Steed is looking for you to analyze some data about apple and pear picking across several different apple and pear varieties and several different farms in Washington state.

To understand the questions PickTrace wants you to answer, watch Harrison’s pre-recorded     video. I have summarized some of the main questions here, but these bullet points are not a substitute for watching the video and paying attention to the details he emphasizes:

•    What are benchmark estimates of picker productivity for different apple and pear varieties?

•    Which producers (farms) have the highest and lowest picker productivities?

•    What are the average apple and pear picking costs for different varieties at different farms?

•    What apple and pear varieties are most profitable? If apple farms are going to plant new orchards, which varieties should they choose?

PickTrace has provided you with some data on which to base your analysis. The file                      FinalProjectData.csv contains observations (i.e. rows) that represent a single employee picking a single variety of a single crop on a single day. The variables in this data set are:

•    PT ID: an employee identification code specific to an individual employee

•    Org ID: a code specific to a particular producer (farm); there are six unique producers, 1-6

•    Location: a description of the field from which certain fruit was picked; naming conventions differ across different producers (farms)

•    Crop: a description of what crop was harvested

•    Variety: a description of the variety of the crop that was harvested

•    Date: the date of the observation

•    Duration: the length of time the employee was working on the task

•   Total Pieces: the number of bins of fruit the employee picked (quantity picked)

•    Wage Adjustment: a variable used by PickTrace to ensure employees are paid at least minimum wage – you can largely ignore this variable

•    Gross Pay: the amount of money the employee was paid for the task

•    Pay per Hour: Gross Pay divided by Duration (this was pre-calculated by PickTrace and may differ slightly from what you could calculate yourself; feel free to use this variable as it is)

In addition, PickTrace has provided some data on apple and pear prices. The relevant files are   ApplesPriceData.csv and PearsPriceData.csv, respectively. These spreadsheets report average prices in dollars per pound of apples or pears. There are about 1,000 pounds of apples per apple bin, and about  1,400 pounds of pears per pear bin. Not all apple and pear varieties have price data, so you will need to figure out what to do in those cases where data are not available.

You will produce two deliverables: (1) a 2-page write-up summarizing your analysis, and (2) a 3-minute recorded presentation of your findings. As in the midterm project, it is up to you how you want to organize your write-up and presentation. Your presentation should include narration (your own voice-over) and some sort of slides (PowerPoint, etc.). You may choose to record video of yourself if you wish, but it is not necessary. A good final project will have the following characteristics:

•    “Clean,” clear, and attractive formatting in your write-up that fills 2 pages (1 sheet) and no more (you don’t have to be fancy, but your final product should look professional)

•    Effective writing that organizes and communicates your findings. You can accomplish this with paragraphs of full sentences, bulleted lists, text boxes, or some combination of these. You may choose to use headings and subheadings or not. The key is clarity.

•    Clean, clear, and well-labeled graphs, charts, and/or figures where appropriate. Your 1-sheet  summary may be mostly text or mostly figures; it is up to you. However, your figures must be easy to read and appropriately sized. Do not make figures that are too small to read or too big just to take up space. Your recorded presentation should be mostly tables and figures rather   than a lot of text.

•    Addresses most or all the questions raised in Harrison’s pre-recorded video. You may also conduct other analyses you think are important and relevant and report those as well.

•    A recorded presentation with:

o Relaxed, well-paced, precise, and confident narration

o Professional, clear, and attractive visual design

o A focus on the most important main points, rather than less important details

You should submit your Final Project by uploading several files via Canvas. Specifically, you should include the following files:

•    Your 2-page (1 sheet) write-up as a PDF

•    Your 3-minute recorded presentation as a .mp4 file

o You should aim for 3 minutes, but you can be a little over or a little under (~15 seconds either way). If your presentation is WAY too long or too short, you will lose points.

•    A copy of any slides you used in your presentation, ideally as a PDF

•    Any Microsoft Excel workbooks that include your analyses or that you used to produce any charts, figures, or tables (be sure these are saved as .xlsx files and not .csv files, otherwise your work won’t show up on my end!)

•    Any .R files or .Rdata files you used to conduct your analyses (your .R file doesn’t need to run  completely “on its own” like for problem set 2, but I should be able to use it to recreate things that show up in your final PDF)

The grading rubric for this Final Project is on the next page. If you have any clarification questions, please feel free to ask me via email or in class. However, note that the written instructions for this project are intentionally vague. Because you are doing real analyses for a real business, I will be relying on what Harrison asks for as a guide to what kinds of projects will earn high scores. You do not have to use every technique we have learned in this class, and I am not looking for any specific figure or  analysis. Instead, I am looking for you to use some of the skills you have developed over the past four      months to produce a document that is valuable to PickTrace.

Finally, please note that you are not allowed to collaborate with anyone else on this project; you must work alone. If I catch any plagiarism in your write-up or code, you will receive a zero. Good luck!