Lesson ProgressPhase 2 of 6
Phase 2Introduction
Introduction: Launch: Weekend Profit vs. Waste
Establish the unit scoreboard and weekend decision frame
The Unit Scoreboard: Weekend Decision Frame
These are the metrics you'll track throughout this unit. Master them, and you'll be able to help any business optimize its weekend operations.
Weekend Profit
Total revenue minus total costs for Saturday and Sunday operations
Target: Maximize
Waste %
Unsold inventory divided by total inventory ordered, expressed as percentage
Target: ≤ 3%
Inventory Accuracy
How close your predicted demand matches actual sales
Target: ≥ 95%
Staffing Efficiency
Labor cost as percentage of revenue
Target: 15-25%
The Core Tension
Here's the problem in plain English: The campus café wants to maximize profit on weekends, but they currently waste between 8-12% of their inventory. Their target is 3% or less.
The Trade-off
More inventory → More sales but higher waste
Less inventory → Lower waste but potentially lost sales
Your job, as the data consultant, is to find the sweet spot. You'll use descriptive statistics to understand what's "normal," then use forecasting to predict what will happen next. The whole unit leads to one deliverable: a recommendation backed by data.
What You'll Learn in This Unit
- →Lesson 2: Descriptive statistics—what does "normal" café data look like?
- →Lesson 3: Outliers and data quality—when should you ignore a weird number?
- →Lesson 4: Forecasting logic—how do you predict next weekend's sales?
- →Lessons 5-6: Build the analysis in Excel
- →Lessons 7-10: Put it all together in your final project