Pareto Chart Worksheet

You can use the Pareto Chart Worksheet form to evaluate which inputs or categories have the greatest impact on a process output.

Answers the questions:

When to Use	Purpose
Pre-project	Assist in project selection by identifying defects that cause the most customer pain, have the highest COPQ, etc.
Mid-project	Assist in evaluating inputs and setting aside unimportant ones. For example, you can compare the relative frequencies of a problem occurring as a result of different inputs to determine which inputs are likely to be important. Or you could compare the frequencies of the problem at various levels of an input variable to determine whether changing the input has any effect. Inputs eliminated this way are likely to be of little importance to the project.
End of project	Report on the relative frequency or cost of the defect after improvements have been made.

Data

Your data must be summarized category (defect) names recorded in one column matched with summarized counts or cost values in another column.

Consider focusing efforts on the defects whose vertical bars account for most (about 80%) of the total defects. These defects are likely to have the greatest impact on the process output.
If the Pareto chart is flat (all vertical bars are about the same height and the cumulative percentage line is straight), you should identify focus areas based on other factors (financial gain, ease of change, and so on) or consider redefining the defects to better identify major problem areas.

Determine the defects to compare and how to summarize them, for example, count, cost, and so on.
In the Label column, record the defect names.
In the Value column, record the number of occurrences or the cost for each defect.
View the completed Pareto chart and summarize the results in the Conclusion section.

For more information, go to Insert and fill out a form.