A Pareto chart is a bar chart that depicts the frequency or cost (money, time). The ordering of the bars, from most frequent (highest cost) to least highlights the most significant categories. In quality applications, the categories are often defect types.

Consider the following hypothetical scenario: At a small company, a simple electronic sub-assembly is manually prepared as follows.

\fPareto Chart of Defect 140 100 120 80 100 60 80 Frequency Percent 60 40 40 20 20 0 TypeOfDefect Missing Solder Incorrect Board Other Frequency 61 43 20 10 7 Percent 43.3 30.5 14.2 7.1 5.0 Cum % 43.3 73.8 87.9 95.0 100.0Pareto Chart of Defect 350 100 300 80 250 60 200 worth Percent 150- 40 100 20 50- 0 TypeOfDefect Incorrect Board Missing Solder Other worth 145.0 115.0 42.7 34.4 10.5 Percent 41.7 33.1 12.3 9.9 3.0 Cum % 41.7 74.8 87.1 97.0 100.0Bare Board Manual Assembly Manual soldering Visual Inspection ComponentsInspector/Number of defects of each type found Defect type Mary Jose Elias Khalia Marty Sudesh Missing part 10 9 11 8 9 14 Incorrect assembly 3 3 5 5 2 2 Board Surface finish problem 0 4 2 2 Solder defect 6 10 7 6 5 Other (4 types) 3 O