Pareto Chart

Pareto charting uses the "80/20" rule to target the problems you need to work on by helping you identify the largest contributor to those problems. According to the Pareto principle, 80% of the problem is caused by 20% of the steps. Using this principle can help highlight the biggest issues, or "low hanging fruit" so that you can better target your resources. The example below uses the Pareto Chart to determine why the team, when called in after hours, takes longer than 30 minutes to reach the lab, the goal for the facility. Each case surrounding team activation is examined, and the reason for the delay is plotted on the Pareto Chart.

A total of five reasons were found for the delay, but bad weather appears to be the overriding cause. Understanding this fact enables a facility to work on a solution that targets the major cause of this delay. In this case, requiring the on-call team to stay within the facility when bad weather is expected and providing them a sleeping area should improve response times.