A national manufacturer of ball bearings is experimenting with two different processes for producing precision ball bearings. It is important that the diameters be as close as possible to an industry standard. The output from each process is sampled and the average error from the industry standard is measured in millimeters. The results are presented next.

Process AProcess BSample mean2.03.0Standard deviation1.00.5Sample size1214

The researcher is interested in determining whether there is evidence that the two processes yield different average errors. The population standard deviations are unknown but are assumed equal. If we test the null hypothesis at the 1% level of significance, what is the decision?

Select one:

a. Reject the null hypothesis and conclude the means are different.

b. Reject the null hypothesis and conclude the means are the same.

c. Fail to reject the null hypothesis.

d. Fail to reject the null hypothesis and conclude the means are different.