ABSTRACT
Joseph Juran, one of the prominent "gurus" of quality improvement noted that only a few factors contributing to an effect actually account for the bulk of the effect. Juran called the observation, that a few factors cause the bulk, the "Pareto" principle. Actually, Pareto was an economist who noted that a relatively small number of people controlled most of the wealth in Italy. The Pareto chart is a bar chart that distinguishes the "important" from the "not-so-important" when examining data. The Pareto chart is fairly easy to construct and because of its value is one of the most popular tools used by quality teams. The Pareto chart helps the team concentrate on those factors that are most important. It is relatively easy to be overcome by a multitude of causes and waste time looking at minor issues when working on a problem. The Pareto chart is an easy chart to construct.
