Purchase Solution

Lean Six Sigma Project

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

Honda Civic Hybrid Hypothesis
Honda has history of environmental leadership and the company has carried its tradition
along by getting recognized as country's greenest automaker by the Union of
Concerned Scientists (UCS). The Honda's most innovative offering has been with Civic
Hybrid. The company boasts of providing advantage of all the gas-saving technology in
the new Civic Hybrid and an estimated mileage one can get on the highway is 44 mpg.
The vehicle comes with a quick and easy way to boost efficiency in the form of the
ECON button. When the button is pushed, the engine and other power-using system go
into super-efficient mode to maximize the mileage.
However, not all customers would agree to the mileage provided by Honda for its Civic
Hybrid. Many of them believe that the mileage is quite disappointing which might be due
to some manufacturing quality issue with the Honda Civic Hybrid (HCH) and particularly
the CVT that is causing high rate of low mileage experiences when compared with other
make and model hybrids. A step further in this analysis can be that there might be
design issues in the HCH with respect to keeping batteries cool. A direct comparison of
this point can be had with diesel-electric-hybrid buses where the biggest issue for
performance of the hybrid drive on the vehicles which have been tested is temperature
control. If batteries get too hot, they do not recharge and the bus runs effectively on
diesel alone. In fact, some of the buses tested had worse mileage than conventional
models running on the same route.
Hence, from the above analysis, we can form a hypothesis for Honda Civic Hybrid
which is:
H0: The temperature of the city in which HCH is driven has direct impact on the mileage
of the vehicle.

Data Collection

To validate the hypothesis we would need to collect data related to average
temperature and humidity level of different sample cities along with humidity range for
the average mileage reported by HCH users in these cities. The data would have to be
collected for a particular month but cities would be chosen in such a way that there is
variation in the weather conditions among them. Hence, for a selected sample of 5
different cities we would have the data for a month for temperature and humidity and
mileage. For each sample we can calculate the mean mileage. Using ANOVA we would

be able to determine if there is a statistical difference among this data across different
cities. Through the ANOVA test we would also get to know whether or not the means of
several groups are equal.

Data Analysis

The total variation is comprised of the sum of the squares of difference of each mean
with the grand mean (total of all data values divided by the total sample size). There is a
between group variation and within group variation. The whole idea behind the analysis
of variance is to compare the ratio of between group variance to within group variance.
These variations are denoted by Sum of Squares Between Groups SS (B) and Mean
Square Between Groups MS (B). Similarly, SS (W) and MS (W) is the within group data.
Using this data we can calculate the Mean Square and find the F-value which is the
ratio of mean squares. If the between variance is smaller than the within variance, then
the means are really close to each other and we will fail to reject the claim that they are
all equal.

Hence if means are equal we would fail to reject the hypothesis that gas mileage is
affected by the external temperature and conclude that there is an effect of external
temperature on the mileage of the hybrid car.
If one of the means is different we would reject the null, and conclude that there is no
interdependence of external temperature and mileage of the vehicle.

Purchase this Solution

Solution Summary

The lean six sigma projects are examined for Honda Civic.

Solution Preview

Honda Civic Hybrid: Regression analysis
Situation
According to a research, there is a finding that 2006-2008 Civic Hybrid models are suffering an abnormally high rate of battery failure at relatively low miles. The batteries are evidently prematurely losing their charge particularly in hot areas in Arizona and when used in a lot of stop-and-go traffic. The battery pack has a high charge cycling rate when the car models spend a lot of time during hot weather use with the AC on. As a result the battery suddenly drops to no or one bar and stops providing any assistance and doesn't even charge properly.
Regression Case
The problem faced by several Honda Civic Hybrid regarding the battery life can form a regression case for us. We can form a regression equation to study if there exists any relationship between the ...

Purchase this Solution


Free BrainMass Quizzes
Marketing Research and Forecasting

The following quiz will assess your ability to identify steps in the marketing research process. Understanding this information will provide fundamental knowledge related to marketing research.

SWOT

This quiz will test your understanding of the SWOT analysis, including terms, concepts, uses, advantages, and process.

Paradigms and Frameworks of Management Research

This quiz evaluates your understanding of the paradigm-based and epistimological frameworks of research. It is intended for advanced students.

MS Word 2010-Tricky Features

These questions are based on features of the previous word versions that were easy to figure out, but now seem more hidden to me.

Six Sigma for Process Improvement

A high level understanding of Six Sigma and what it is all about. This just gives you a glimpse of Six Sigma which entails more in-depth knowledge of processes and techniques.