There are several ways to process such qualitative data. Lately, when meeting with several people from financial companies, I realized that one of the problems they faced was that they were collecting large amounts of "qualitative" data: types of product, customer profiles, different subsidiaries, several customer requirements, etc. Understandably, services account for a very large part of the economy. It's definitely a heckuva lot more forgiving than Mount Everest.In several previous blogs, I have discussed the use of statistics for quality improvement in the service sector. Luckily, a Pareto chart doesn’t have to be perfect to provide valuable insight. I hope you aren't facing those conditions when you collect data. Of course, it probably wasn't easy recording data in an environment where winds can reach 320 kph (200 mph), temperatures can plunge to minus 73 degrees Celsius (-100 F), and there's up to 70% less oxygen than at sea level. In other cases it may have been a Fall that wasn’t witnessed or a storm that caused a climber to be separated from the group.įor this Pareto chart, we're limited to the causes (categories) recorded by the climbers. Disappearance is a bit unclear-in some cases it could mean an Unknown cause. There’s overlap across categories like Exposure, Exhaustion, and Cold and Exhaustion. They should be clearly divided into just 2 separate categories, or combined into a single category. The categorizations in the Pareto chart for Himalayan fatalities could be better. Mechanical Errors actually caused many more failures, but inconsistent categorizing caused them to miss this leading cause. As a result, Personnel Errors appeared to be the leading cause of failures, and became the focus of their quality improvements efforts. But they subdivided Mechanical Failures into several narrower categories, based on the precise type of mechanical failure. They created a broad category that counted Personnel Errors as one cause. Navy wanted to identify primary causes of equipment failures. I found a good example of the third pitfall on a U.S. An inconsistent level of generality may cause you to miss or incorrectly rank leading causes. Some categories are broad, some narrow.You may end up with too many categories, making the chart unfocused and complex. You may end up with too few categories, making the chart vague and oversimplified.
![pareto chart minitab pareto chart minitab](https://blog.minitab.com/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/pareto_chart_of_defect.jpg)
The most common mistake is not categorizing the data well. Pretty important info, and it was the Pareto Chart that pointed me in the direction to discover this.Ī Pareto Chart is only as good as the categories that you use for it. You can’t prevent an avalanche, of course, but you might be able to anticipate on which route the avalanche risk is greatest, or under what conditions or time of year one is more likely to happen.įor example, after subsetting the data to focus only on avalanches on Everest, I used Stat > Tables > Tally Individual Variables to quickly summarize the avalanche fatalities on Everest by route.Ĭlose to 60% of avalanche fatalities on Everest occur on just 2 routes. If you’re a guide, those are the dangers to focus on to make the biggest impact in safeguarding your clients. Tip: To clearly show where the cumulative number of fatalities hits the critical 80% mark, I added a reference line at 80 on the secondary Y scale (right-click and choose Add > Reference Line).Īs you can see, nearly 80% of fatalities on Himalayan climbs are caused by just four things: Avalanches, Falls, Disappearances, and Exposure. The Pareto chart below summarizes the causes of recorded fatalities on 15 Himalayan peaks, including Mount Everest. That calls for the graphical workhorse of quality improvement analysis: The Pareto Chart ( Stat > Quality Tools > Pareto Chart). So you need a tool to clearly identify the most important problems or causes leading to fatalities on the climbs. You want to protect your customers from experiencing the ultimate defect: death. Of course, if you’re an adventure/trekking company, you have another goal: to guide thrill-seeking mountaineers to the peak safely. In my last blog, we compared fatality rates on Himalayan peaks to determine which mountain provides the biggest challenge for would-be mountaineers in search of death thrills.