Is there a way to do a Pareto in minitab where the Y axis is not count, but another numeric category? I am trying to plot a relation of count and cycle time for a series of event types. I multiplied count by cycle time to get an "area under the curve" type value and now would like to plot those in descending order bar chart with a cumulative percentage line. Thanks

Minitab will create a Pareto using any type of numeric data. It allows you to enter a descriptive label for that axis, so it does not have to be count data.

or, for such a simple chart - why not Excel?

Minitab is first and foremost a statistical analysis package, not a graphing package.

Thanks to both for the feedback. I can and have done the chart in Excel. The value of doing it in Minitab is just to keep it with all the other analysis i have done and to be able to dump it into the report function.

Miner, can you point me to how to construct the graph? When I work through the pareto screen under quality tools, it is not apparent to me how I indicate that I want the dependent variable to be something other than count. Thanks

Open Minitab. Select Stat, Quality Tools, Pareto Chart.

Enter how your data is structured. First selection for single column, second option for two column format. I recommend that you use the second selection, and enter your labels in one column and your 'area under the curve' data in another column.

Then select the Options button, and enter 'Area' (or your label) into the Y axis Label cell. Click OK, OK, and you should have the Pareto that you want.

Thank you very much. That worked great.