Matsushita is well known for the efficiency of its automated factories. Facing pressure from developing Asian producers with lower labor costs, the company reconfigured robots in its factory in Saga,...

Matsushita is well known for the efficiency of its automated factories. Facing pressure from developing Asian producers with lower labor costs, the company reconfigured robots in its factory in Saga, Japan. After the modification, it takes 40 minutes to configure the assembly line and start production. Formerly, it took about 20 hours.¹⁷
Once production begins, the plant runs as previously; the robots are the same, only reconfigured to simplify changing tasks. How will this modification change the nature of the equation fitted in order to analyze the association between the time to complete a production run (the response) and the number of units produced? Do you expect the slope, intercept, and error variance all to change? Note the interpretation of these parameters in the context of these data.