SALES SCIENCE INTERVIEW EXERCISE

INTRODUCTION Auto manufacturers that determine a vehicle has a safety defect will conduct a recall campaign. During a recall all vehicle owners will be notified there is a problem and are asked to contact their auto dealership to schedule vehicle service to correct or resolve the safety concern.

When recalls affect a large number of vehicles, day-to-day business at the dealerships can be disrupted causing a drop in new vehicle sales, part sales or tire replacements. Understanding the frequency and size of recalls is important for any company working in the automotive industry.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is a federal agency that requires auto manufacturers to notify the public when a significant safety concern is identified. The information is available in data tables stored on the website for NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation.

DATA Data can be downloaded from the NHTSA web site: http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/downloads/flatfiles.cfm The specific files needed for this analysis will be the Recall files:  FLAT_RCL.zip — This file contains all NHTSA safety-related defect and compliance recall campaigns since 1967.  RCL.txt — This file provides a list of the fields in the zipped file along with their data type and a brief description.

EXERCISE Develop a repeatable process: retrieve recall data, subset to focus on vehicle and tire manufacturers relevant to the tire dealer , clean data if necessary, then write an analysis that interprets patterns or trends you observe. You are encouraged to use the R or Python programming languages but are welcome to use any languages or tools you prefer.

Focus on the number of campaigns and the number of vehicles affected by specific recall campaigns.

Summarize trends for each manufacturer. Use tables, charts and graphs to illustrate your observations. If you notice other patterns or useful data points, please include those in your summary as well.

Make a list of ideas you have for advanced methods or modeling approaches that might uncover deeper insights. If you have time to create proof-of-concept examples or work through first steps of any advanced methods, please include.

Time given for this exercise is limited, so it is not required that every element be completed as working code. Sharing your thought process and business acumen is valuable, even if only included as pseudo code or written discussion.

RELEVANT VEHICLE MANUFACTURERS  BMW  MINI  MERCEDES  LEXUS  NISSAN  AUDI  VOLKSWAGEN  HYUNDAI  INFINITI  KIA  MAZDA  LAND ROVER  VOLVO  HONDA  JAGUAR  ACURA  TOYOTA  MOPAR  SUBARU  PORSCHE