Predicting Courier Costs
The law firm of Adams, Babcock, and Connors is located in the Dallas-Fort metroplex. Randall Adams is the senior and founding partner of the firm. John Babcock has been a partner in the firm for the past eight years, and Blake Connors became a partner just last year. The firm employs two paralegal assistants and three secretaries. In addition, you, the newly hired office manager, are in charge of day-to-day operations and manage the financial affairs of the law firm.
A major aspect of the law firm's business is the preparation of contracts and other legal documents for its clients. A courier service is employed by the firm to deliver legal documents to its many clients as they are scattered throughout the metroplex. The downtown centers of Dallas and Fort Worth are separated by a distance of approximately (30) miles. With the large sizes of these cities and their associated heavy traffic, a trip by car from the southwest side of Fort Worth to the northeast side of Dallascan easily take longer than an hour which could impact courier costs.
In order to improve the firm's planned expenditures, you have been asked to derive a regression model that would be best in predicting courier costs. The information provided in the Excel file E281 Project 2 Data, includes cost (charge for the delivery), pickup time (time in minutes from when the order is phoned in until a courier agent arrives), delivery time (time in minutes that it takes for the documents to be delivered), and mileage (distance in miles from the law firm to the destination).
(a). Select only (1) of the (3) independent variables provided to use in your regression model. Justify your selection by ONLY applying the p-value approach.
(b). Using your results in (a), develop the most appropriate regression model using a linear model, quadratic model, and cubic regression model.
(c). Using your results in (a), develop the most appropriate model using a linear model, log-logmodel, logarithmic model, and exponential model.
(d). Write a (1) page report that summarizes your results and methodology, and explain your perspective of the models you developed in (b) and (c). In regards to your results in (b) and (c), which model would you choose. Briefly explain.