Question

Question: Performance-based logistics. In industry, performance-based logistics (PBL) strategies are increasingly popular ways to reduce cost, increase revenue, and attain customer satisfaction. The Journal of Business Logistics (Vol. 36, 2015) used the opinions of a sample of 17 upper-level employees of the U.S. Department of Defense and its suppliers to determine the factors that lead to successful PBL projects. The current position (e.g., vice president, manager [mgr.]), type of organization (commercial or government), and years of experience were measured for each employee interviewed. These data are listed below. Identify each variable measured as producing quantitative or qualitative data.

Interviews	Position	Organization	Experience (years)
1	Vice president	Commercial	30
2	Post production	Government	15
3	Analyst	Commercial	10
4	Senior mgr.	Government	30
5	Support chief	Commercial	30
6	Specialist	Government	25
7	Senior analyst	Government	9
8	Division chief	Government	6
9	Item mgr.	Government	3
10	Senior mgr.	Government	20
11	MRO mgr.	Government	25
12	Logistics mgr.	Government	30
13	MRO mgr.	Commercial	10
14	MRO mgr.	Commercial	5
15	MRO mgr.	Commercial	10
16	Specialist	Government	20
17	Chief	Government	25

Short answer

The ‘current position’ and ‘organization’ are qualitative, but the ‘experience’ in number of years is quantitative.

Step-by-step solution

Providing the difference between qualitative and quantitative variables

Qualitative data does not contain numbers because that data does not include any quantitative variable. Quantitative data, on the other hand, is quantitative or numerical in nature as the data includes numerical variables.The ‘current position’ and ‘organization’ are qualitative, but the ‘experience’ in number of years is quantitative.

Explaining the reason for the variables to be qualitative or quantitative

The position of an employee and the organization type cannot be in numerical form as they represent names for which they are qualitative. The experiences of employees can be quantitative because the experience of an employee is determined by the number of years, which is numerical in nature.