Many people will view complaints in a negative sense-something went wrong, or “I failed.” But as Jack points out, opportunity lies in the complaint. Taking the complaint as an opportunity is the best mindset when approaching quality control. If the consumer truly believes you are trying to help them, all too frequently, their opinion changes to a positive state.
The Consumer Complaint Database is hosted by the U.S. General Services Administration on the DATA.gov webpage. It is a registry of complaints about consumer financial products and services filed with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The database is huge, consisting of over 4.5M lines, so there are lots of opportunities in it.
The central task in this case study is to determine if the resolved financial complaints filed against Equifax in Texas are under control, explain why, and provide recommendations for bringing the process back under control (if applicable). This assignment consists of collecting complaint data for the company for the years 2020 until the current month and year, counting the number of completed complaints (i.e., closed, not in progress) monthly (excluding the current month, which would include incomplete data), developing a 3-sigma control chart for the number of complaints per month, and analyzing the chart. The introductory video below provides a very brief introduction. Detailed instructions are in the step tabs
To do list
- DATA: Follow the Step 1 tab to download the CFPB data from data.gov.
- EXTRACT: Follow the Step 2 tab to extract only the data needed from the CSV file you downloaded from CFPB.
- CHART: Follow the Step 3 tab to manipulate the data into proper form and build the necessary control charts.
- INTERPRET: Follow the Step 4 tab and interpret the control chart.
- WRITE: Follow the Step 5 tab for writing instructions and to submit your paper. (Due Date 1)
Step one
Data:
Introduction
Begin by downloading and reading the instructions in the Case Study 1 file below. Then go to the DATA.GOV website and acquire the CSV data file. Once you have the data, move to STEP 2.
Case File
Data
Go to the data.gov website and download the data in a comma-separated values (CSV) file. CSV files are text files with values separated by commas. They can hold vast quantities of data beyond the limits of Excel. The file you will download is millions of lines long and will take some time to complete. Use this link or the link in the references to access the file.
Step two extract data
The CSV file you just downloaded is large and in a zip file. Excel cannot open it. You need to extract the file from the zip folder first. To do that, use the Extract all option in Windows File Explorer, or on a Mac, simply double-click the .zip file in Finder. Next, we will extract specific lines from the file using a Power Query. Interpret the assignment file in STEP 1 to determine the criteria of the lines you need to extract. The videos below show how to use Power Query, but do not show the full criteria of the lines you need to extract.
Ex:
Step 3 make a chart
Instructions
Now that you have the data out of the CSV, we need a way to manipulate the observations into a form that will allow us to develop a control chart. The best tool for doing that is called a SumProduct. Watch the instructional video on using the SumProduct command in Excel to manipulate your data into a format for a quality control chart. Finally, build the needed control chart(s) following the Lessons in Quality Control instructions.
Step 4 interpret
The instructional materials section 18.1 tab provided a little more information about interpreting control charts. It also provided the following table from SPC for Excel’s webpage, a great reference. You might want to review some more of the SPC for Excel material before proceeding. To get you started, here is an article by Bill McNeesse from SPC for
After reviewing the Bill McNeese article (there are many SPC resources available on the Internet), watch his video using the link below in the Instructional Video area.
Step 5 write
With Henry Ford’s, Jack Ma’s, and Warren Buffet’s (top of the page) words in mind, write a professional quality report with interpretations and recommendations for the executive team at Equifax. Include the chart(s) that you developed. Review the instructions in the case study assignment sheet under STEP 1. Links to the text by Hare et al. (2023) and the chapter by Ashton (2022), Consultation and Research Report Writing, are provided in the Reference section to assist you in writing your report. Hare et al.’s Chapter 2 and Ashton’s Chapter 15 addresses business report writing.
- Several ebook readers, also called viewers, are available. I think the one that works best is the for PCs and Macs.
- After downloading the text from the reference section and installing Kindle, you can add the two texts by opening Kindle in the Library, clicking File, and then clicking Import a Local PDF.
- Watch the how to work with the eBook video:
In writing your report, consider the consumer or reader of the report as the executive team at Equifax, not your professor. To further assist you, you can submit the paper, and Turnitin will examine the file for plagiarism or potential errors in citing sources. After submitting the paper, give the system a few minutes to generate the report.

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