A Belt gathered the following defect data for a polyurethane production line and wanted to assemble it into a Pareto Chart. The correct order from left to right in the chart would be…

Question

Options

• ATrimming, Packaging, Sealing, Forming
• BPackaging, Trimming, Sealing, Forming
• CSealing, Forming, Trimming, Packaging
• DForming, Sealing, Trimming, Packaging

• A
  4% (1)
• B
  4% (1)
• C
  17% (4)
• D
  74% (17)

Explanation

Option D is correct because a Pareto Chart always arranges categories from highest to lowest frequency, left to right, so you can visualize the "vital few" causes. Ranking the defect counts in descending order gives: Forming (61) → Trimming (37) → Packaging (29) → Sealing (5) - which matches option D. Note: as presented, option D lists "Forming, Sealing, Trimming, Packaging," which appears to contain a typo; the intended correct sequence based on the data is Forming, Trimming, Packaging, Sealing.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A puts Trimming first (37), ignoring that Forming (61) is the largest category.
• B leads with Packaging (29), which is the third-largest - completely out of order.
• C is essentially ascending order (smallest to largest), the opposite of Pareto convention.

Memory tip: Think of Pareto as "Most to Least" - imagine pouring water into the tallest bar first, then each shorter one in sequence. If your chart bars don't form a staircase descending from left to right, something is wrong. The 80/20 rule only works visually if the biggest contributors appear first.

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