Operations and production managers often use the normal distribution as a probability model to forecast demand in order to determine inventory levels, manage the supply chain, control production and service processes, and perform quality assurance checks on products and services.The information gained from such statistical analyses help managers optimize resource allocation and reduce process time, which in turn often improves profit margins and customer satisfaction.

Based on your understanding of the characteristics of the normal distribution, examine the chart below.Process Astandard deviation is .9, Process B standard deviation is 1.4, and the mean of both processes is 12.

Which of the processes shows more variation?What does this mean practically?

Employing the Normal Distribution 0.5 0.45 Process A 0.4 0.35 0.3 Probability Density 0.25 0.2 0.15 0.1 Process B 0.05 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 Product