Which technique is used to prioritize problems by focusing on the few causes that contribute most to the effect?

• A. Pareto Analysis
• B. FMEA
• C. Ishikawa Diagram
• D. Run Chart

Answer: (A)

Pareto analysis uses the 80/20 idea to prioritize problems by focusing on the few causes that contribute most to the effect. By collecting data on issues and ranking them from most to least significant, you identify the “vital few” causes that account for the majority of the impact. Displaying this information in a Pareto chart highlights which problems to tackle first, so improvements yield the greatest overall benefit with limited resources. In practice, you tally problem occurrences or costs, sort them, and examine the cumulative impact to see when a small set of causes explains most of the effect. This approach is especially useful when multiple issues exist but only a subset drives the bulk of the problem. Other tools serve different purposes: FMEA evaluates potential failure modes by severity, occurrence, and detection to prioritize risk across many possible failures; the Ishikawa diagram maps out relationships between causes and effects but doesn’t inherently rank them; the Run chart tracks process performance over time to spot trends without directly identifying or prioritizing root causes.