Masters Programmes
Group Work Assignment Cover Sheet
Submitted by: 1852219, 1852519, 1851674, 1892702, 1897763, 1894599
Group Number: 11
Date: 19/11/2018
Module Title: Spreadsheet Modelling
Module Code: IB94W0
Date/Year of Module: 2018-2019
Submission Deadline: 19/11/2018 12:00
Word Count: 1745 (Exclude intro & conclusion)
Number of Pages: 14
Question: Projecting profit for smart eco-logistics
I declare that this work is being submitted on behalf of my group, in accordance with the
University's Regulation 11 and the WBS guidelines on plagiarism and collusion. All external
references and sources are clearly acknowledged and identified within the contents. No
substantial part(s) of the work submitted here has also been submitted in other assessments for
accredited courses of study and if this has been done it may result in us being reported for selfplagiarism and an appropriate reduction in marks may be made when marking this piece of work.
IB94W0 Spreadsheet Modelling Assignment
Group 11
Contents
1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 3
2. Logic Model
............................................................................................................................................. 3
3. Model and Layout ......................................................................................... 4
3.1 Description of Model Sheet
3.2 Description of Layout Sheet
3.3 Evaluation of Spreadsheet
4. Plot graphing pseudo-code ........................................................................... 8
5. Sketch of an informative chart ................................................................... 11
6. Two Original ideas ...................................................................................... 12
6.1 Generate report as PDF and Email it to the user
6.2 Demand Stochastic Event simulation
7. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 14
8. Reference list ............................................................................................... 14
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1. Introduction
This paper will provide a profit simulation model and user interface design for the operation of an
intelligent logistics company. Some other related functions will also be introduced and suggested. The
entire design will be based on the spreadsheet (Microsoft Excel). All the basic functionality required by
the company will be considered and additional functionality will be satisfied as much as possible during
the report. The article will start with the logical model of the profit simulation model.
2. Logic Model
(Figure 1: Logic Model)
The goal of the logic model is to obtain the profit, that is, revenue minus vehicle cost. The model is
mainly divided into two areas. The area on the left shows how to get the vehicle cost, and the right
shows revenue. The model affects the team's design in two parts.
The logic model directly informs the manager how to build a systemic model. It shows how ordering or
relinquishing vehicles affect revenues and costs by changing initial costs and available vehicles. The
model also shows the relationship between demand and supply (capacity) to calculate the demand of
each quarter.
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It is noticeable that the logic model clearly shows the focus of the user interface layout. The variable that
has reflexive dependency may be present in the manager's layout because of its adaptability. It is
necessary for users to observe the changes. Two manual input variables (order/relinquish vehicle) will
appear as the key part of the layout in front of the user because the profits of delivery are primarily
affected by them in the logical model. In addition, as the most important operational information: costs,
revenues, and profits need to be presented in the layout as an informative chart.
3. Model and Layout
The layout of the spreadsheet shows the essentials of design to meet the requirements and customer
needs. The spreadsheet contains four sheets: The interface sheet for users (1), the model sheet including
details of the calculation (2), the sheet to store default values (3) and the sheet to store saved values (4).
The user can only see the interface sheet (1), the others (2,3,4) are not visible.
(Figure 2: Connection between worksheets)
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3.1 Description of “model” Sheet
The model sheet is shown below.
(Figure 3: Model sheet)
As shown in Figure 1, the model comprises three tables: Operational Aspects, Vehicles Plan, and
Simulation Table. The Operational Aspects are parameters given by users including initial cost, running
cost per quarter, the capacity of vehicles, lead time, and revenue per unit. The Vehicles Plan shows the
order/relinquish decisions over 20 quarters in the range [-2, 2]. The Simulation Table displays how the
profits are calculated.
According to the logic model, Total Profit is the sum of the quarterly profits, which equals the
differences between revenue and cost of each quarter.
Quarterly revenue is available capacity multiplied by the unit revenue. Available capacity is determined
by both capacity and demand. When capacity is lower than demand, available capacity is capacity;
otherwise, demand is available capacity. Demand will increase by 2.5% following quarters in which
capacity meets demand. If capacity does not meet demand, the business will lose demand by a factor
0.015% per unit to be substracted from 2.5%. The design needs to be presented in the model using the IF
formulae, because of the conditional nature of the calculations. Capacity is determined by the number of
available vehicles at the start of the quarter and the number of vehicles ordered/relinquished after lead
time.
Quarterly cost includes running cost and initial cost. Running costs are derived from the available
vehicle and vehicle unit running costs. When the user orders the vehicle to enlarge the capacity, initial
payment should be made at once. In addition, to ensure that the initial cost and available vehicles do not
have negative values, these two column cells need to be determined using the IF function.
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It is noticeable that the representation of most values in the model sheet is done by using cell reference
or basic addition and subtraction formulae.
3.2 Description of Layout Sheet
With regard to layout sheet, its concrete interface is shown below
(Figure 4: User interface sheet)
As shown in Figure 2, users can manually enter their plan in the form at the top of the sheet. With the
change of numbers, the corresponding results will convert in the Simulation Table of the model sheet.
Quarterly profit will also be shown in the top table. Additionally, the results of total profits, total
revenue, and total costs will be automatically calculated and displayed on the left of the sheet.
The middle of the interface is the chart illustrates the profit, revenue, cost, capacity, demand, and excess
capacity. Users can toggle which graph to display and can compare information in this format. This
function is implemented by VBA macros.
The two tables at the bottom of the interface are the basic parameters and advanced parameters made by
referring to the logical model. The basic parameters show the initial demand, expected growth, and
business losses per unit. Advanced parameters are affected by the supplier selected by the customer,
including details of large and small vehicles and unit revenue. Usually, these parameters do not change.
Therefore, when the user tries to alter the parameters, a warning message box will appear to warn the
user.
Above all, the layout provides users with five functional buttons: “Optimize”, “Save order plan”, “Reset
to saved order plan”, “Reset to Default Value”, and “Email Results”. There are also check boxes to
toggle the chart as well as a “Clear” button to clear the data. The default values are thereby saved in
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variables. As the saved values will change, these values need to be saved on the work sheet in order to
not lose them after closing down excel.
The optimise button on the right of the input table is applied to a macro which provides users with
optimal profits. When the button is clicked, the input table and the output of total profit, total revenue,
and the total cost will change to the results related to the optimal decision. The “Save order plan” and
“Reset to saved order plan” button provides the user with an option to store the plan they are satisfied
with and return to that plan whenever the user wants. The button “Reset to Default Value” is designed to
help the users set the interface into the original working parameters. “Email Results” button is an
additional function. It sends the results of the plan to the email address specified by users by creating a
report and attaching it to an Outlook email. The text box named “suggestions” will alert users to whether
the profits are optimal.
3.3 Evaluation of Spreadsheet
Our spreadsheet gives instructions to users on how to use the functions of the sheets. The Layout sheet
provides the user with information that we have deemed to be most valuable to the user and is arranged
according to reading habits so that users can efficiently find everything that they need, allowing for
quick business decisions to be made (Leong and Cheong, 2008). Warnings will show up when users
operate the model in a potentially incorrect way while some cells are protected and cannot change to
ensure the integrity of the model. The model visualises results by offering an informative chart in which
users can obtain the information they require and make needed comparisons. Users are allowed to
change some basic and advanced parameters in case some of the conditions change in the future, which
also boosts confidence that our model is sustainable. For these reasons, we find the model to be “userfriendly.”
The shortcoming of our model we may have given the user too much freedom in handling what
information is being displayed in the chart. If too much information is being displayed, the chart can
quickly lose readability and could lead to some misinformation being gathered by the user viewing the
chart. We did not, however, want to restrict the user in this regard because they made find information
of value from displaying multiple information ranges.
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4. Plot graphing pseudo-code
Pseudocode is shown below:
Begin
If Profit.Box = TRUE
Data source = Profit Range
Chart Type = Line
Y Axis = Y1 Axis
Call Y1.Scale
If else Profit.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Revenue.Box = TRUE
Data source = Revenue Range
Chart Type = Line
Y axis = Y1 Axis
Call Y1.Scale
If else Revenue.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Cost.Box = TRUE
Data source = Cost Range
Chart Type = Line
Y axis = Y1 Axis
Call Y1.Scale
If else Cost.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Capacity.Box = TRUE
Data source = Capacity Range
Chart Type = Bar
Y axis = Y2 Axis
Call Y2.Scale
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If else Capacity.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Demand.Box = TRUE
Data source = Demand Range
Chart Type = Bar
Y axis = Y2 Axis
Call Y2.Scale
If else Demand.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Excess.Capacity.Box = TRUE
Data source = Excess.Capacity Range
Chart Type = Bar
Y axis = Y2 Axis
Call Y2.Scale
If else Excess.Capacity.Box = FALSE
Data.Clear
If Clear.Chart.Button is clicked
Profit.Box = FALSE
Revenue.Box = FALSE
Cost.Box = FALSE
Capacity.Box = FALSE
Demand.Box = FALSE
Excess.Capacity.Box = FALSE
Sub Y1.Scale
For Each Y1.Series In Chart
If Y1.Series.Min < Y1.Min.Scale
Y1.Min.Scale = Y1.Series.Min
End If
If Y1.Series.Max > Y1.Max.Scale
Y1.Max.Scale = Y1.Series.Max
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End If
Next Series
End Sub
Sub Y2.Scale
For Each Y2.Series In Chart
If Y2.Series.Min < Y2.Min.Scale
Y2.Min.Scale = Y2.Series.Min
End If
If Y2.Series.Max > Y2.Max.Scale
Y2.Max.Scale = Y2.Series.Max
End If
Next Series
End Sub
End
This pseudocode represents the functionality of the plot. The idea of the macro is to allow the user to
toggle which information they would like shown on the plot. As the user checks each box with the
assigned macro, the box will become TRUE/FALSE indicating which information is being shown in the
plot. The user will simply have to toggle on or off the information to display what they want to
investigate. There is also a “clear” button to unselect all the choices. In including this feature in the
dashboard, the user can automate what information they want to be shown. In doing so, it can save the
user valuable time as well as allow the user to compare different bits of information at once. It also
cleans up the dashboard and allows for a more “user-friendly” interface.
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5. Sketch of an informative chart
Figure 5: Plot of Profit, Revenue and Costs)
(Figure 6: Plot of Demand, Capacity and Excess Capacity)
(Figure 7: Plot of Profit and Excess Capacity)
The graph in the centre of the dashboard can be controlled by checkboxes to the right of the graph. The
purpose of being able to control the information shown is to provide the user with the ability to work out
relations between the information given as well as to be able to present exactly the information the user
needs at a given point in time. Within the selection, monetary KPIs (i.e. profit, revenue and costs) are
represented as lines and demand KPIs (i.e. demand, capacity and difference) are presented as bars
(Tufte, 2001). This helps two purposes: Firstly, the user is able to distinguish easily between monetary
and demand KPIs. Secondly, the difference between demand and capacity of one quarter heavily
influences the demand for the next quarter, so an analysis on a quarterly basis is very helpful.
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6. Two Original ideas
6.1 Generate report as PDF and Email it to the user
(Figure 8: Location of “Email Results” button)
On Pressing the button “Email Results”, an existing model on the dashboard would be generated in a “pdf
report format” with all the KPI’s and sent in a mail to the necessary users associated with the project. The
report generated is shown below:
(Figure 9: Draft of the report to be e-mailed)
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IB94W0 Spreadsheet Modelling Assignment
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This button essentially saves time for the user to convert visualisation and text data into a more readable
format. In addition, the report focusses on the quarterly breakup of important metrics such as cost,
revenue, profit, vehicles acquired/relinquished etc. This functionality saves time and effort to make a
new report and automatically attaches the PDF in the user’s Email and sends it across the company’s
employees associated with the same project.
6.2 Demand Stochastic Event simulation
Demand Stochastic event simulation is used to simulate the impact of various events on market demand.
In real life, periodic changes in demand exist with holidays such as Christmas or Black Friday may
boost demand. The simulation can add a change to the demand sequence in the form of a random array
with VLOOKUP function. Demands for one or more of the 20 quarters will vary from a fixed pattern
due to random events, testing the entire simulation response. This mechanism makes the simulation
more realistic for decision makers' reference.
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7. Conclusion
In conclusion, the report makes logical models based on the delivery scenario. And visually design a clear
model and user-friendly interface according to the logic model and requirements. Pseudocode related to
chart visualisation is also written in the content. This model design also provides descriptions of charts
that reflect cross-information and two valuable additional functional ideas. The design ideas presented in
this report can fully assist in the implementation of the interface. With regard to the completion of the
interface, further study may be needed to provide a complete version in the future.
8. Reference List
Tufte, E. (2001). The visual display of quantitative information. 2nd ed. Graphics Press.
Leong, T. and Cheong, M. (2008). Teaching Business Modeling Using Spreadsheets. INFORMS
Transactions on Education, 9(1), pp.20-34.
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