In 1970 George Thrall founded Aqualock, Inc., a manufacturing company producing smal rubber gaskets used in hydraulics systems. His gaskets were simple in design and relatively easy to produce in large quantities. In 1977, gross sales from servicing customers throughout North America with large quantity shipments reached $8 million. Demand for Aqualock products has increased so rapidly that the manufacturing facility is constantly under pressure to increase output around the clock. Customers and sales personnel in the field often call the home facility to determine estimated lead times for prospective orders and estimated delivery times for existing orders In response, production foremen have increasingly emphasized to employees the need for increasing output to meet demand In late 1977, George Thrall began experiencing a new problem, an increase in customer complaints about the quality of shipments being received. George decided to add a quality control analyst to the Aqualock staff in hopes of finding and correcting the sources of customer dissatisfaction In his first two weeks the quality analyst uncovered some data that a production foreman had recorded two years previously Data for gasket YB4 (1976) Sample number 1 Sample size 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 40 Number of defective gaskets In sample 0 4 6 10 0 12 The analyst began gathering data on current production of the same gasket. Samples were taken once each day for five consecutive work days with these results. Data for gasket YB4 (1978) Sample size 40 40 40 40 40 Number of defective gaskets In sample 4 8 Sample number 1 4 8 5 If you were the new analyst, what ideas would you entertain for getting to the bottom of George Thrall's quality problem? Of what value are the data at hand? What avenues of exploration would you recommend? a) b) c)