Every year, a large number of cars are recalled by the automobile firms due to safety reasons. In the U.S., all car recall data is recorded and stored by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation. This dataset is available to the public and contains all NHTSA safety-related defect and compliance campaigns since 1967. The data is in text format with 89431 records. All the records are TAB delimited, and all dates are in YYYYMMDD format . The data also includes 24 variables listed in the table below.
As a data analyst, you are interested in the car recalls related to Ford Focus and Honda Accord. To analyse the data, please follow the steps below.
1. Download the car recall data from .
2. Convert the text file to a data file that you can analyse (i.e., Stata, SAS, Excel, SPSS or Python) .
3. For Ford Focus and Honda Accord respectively, find out how many records in the data set are related to these two models.
4. For Ford Focus and Honda Accord respectively, how many of the recalls are initiated by the manufacturer (MFR), Office of Vehicle Safety Compliance (OVSC) or Office of Defects Investigation (ODI). Tabulate the results in a table with the frequency and percentage.
5. For Ford Focus and Honda Accord respectively, draw a bar chart to demonstrate the number of cars that are affected for each model year. (Hint: use the variable “YEARTXT” and “POTAFF”)
In 2016, Vauxhall decided to recall all its Zafira B model in the UK, involving 234,938 cars manufactured from 2009 to 2014. The root cause behind this large recall is that, all affected cars used the same faulty thermal fuse that may cause fire2 . In fact, sharing the same component across different products is a common practice in manufacturing industry . However, when the shared component fails, the firms have to recall a large number of products, resulting in very high cost and negative impact on the firms’ public image.
6. Use the car recall data, verify that component sharing indeed exists. (Hint: you can create a new variable called “sharing”, which counts how many different car models are using the same defective component, then draw a histogram of “sharing” . You can also study how many cars are recalled for each of the defective component.)
7. Briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of component sharing in the context of product recalls (Word limit: 300). You can make use of the reference listed below.
Reference
1 Based on the car recall data downloaded in July 2011 from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Department of Transportation, USA.
2 http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/vauxhall/zafira/93176/vauxhall-zafira-fires-all-zafira-b-models-recalled-again
Davidson III, W.N. and Worrell, D.L., 1992. Research notes and communications: The effect of product recall announcements on shareholder wealth. Strategic Management Journal, 13(6), pp.467-473.
Fisher, M., Ramdas, K. and Ulrich, K., 1999. Component sharing in the management of product variety: A study of automotive braking systems. Management Science, 45(3), pp.297-315.
Haunschild, P.R. and Rhee, M., 2004. The role of volition in organizational learning: The case of automotive product recalls. Management Science, 50(11), pp.1545-1560.
Oshri, I. and Newell, S., 2005. Component sharing in complex products and systems: challenges, solutions, and practical implications. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 52(4), pp.509-521.
Ramdas, K., Fisher, M. and Ulrich, K., 2003. Managing variety for assembled products: Modeling component systems sharing. Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 5(2), pp.142-156.
Ramdas, K. and Randall, T., 2008. Does component sharing help or hurt reliability? An empirical study in the automotive industry. Management Science, 54(5), pp.922-938.
Rhee, M. and Haunschild, P.R., 2006. The liability of good reputation: A study of product recalls in the US automobile industry. Organization Science, 17(1), pp.101-117.
Data Explanation