Jon,
Thanks for the advice.. this will add nicely to the stacked bar... thanks
so much for the time you invested to produce the example.
Paul
"Jon Peltier" wrote in message
...
I understand the issue; I used to do this stuff. Stacked columns, paretos,
or whatever show only a snapshot in time. but it seems to me that a better
visual is a time line showing all the data. In December, if you had a bunch
of things at 1.50, they wouldn't show up, because the fifth worst was 1.51.
However, in October, they all would be higher than the actual fifth worst
of 1.09. Sure it's important to track the worst ones, but don't ignore the
ones whose rank drops slightly because of fluctuations in all of the data.

I did a little exercise to illustrate my point. I started with your data,
then expanded it so I had each defect type listed for each month, even if
I had no data. I added a column for "Realistic", by which I meant it
showed some kind of incidence for that item. I essentially took a random
number between zero and the lowest data I had (the fifth worst). I made a
pivot table to prep the data for plotting as time series, with incidence
of each defect vs. month. Then I made a regular chart from this data. It's
a little cluttered, so I highlighted the five worst from each month with a
circle around the points, and I think this made it fairly effective. It
not only shows which five were worst in a given month, but it shows the
trend of each defect, and where each crosses between "good" and "bad".
It's only made up data for those below the cutoff, so I won't draw any
conclusions from the data. But from the chart, I'll draw the conclusion
that it's more useful than gust a bad/good decision for each defect each
month. The zipped workbook is located he

http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Zips/DefectTracking.zip

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______


"Paul Ilacqua" wrote in message
...
I may have confused the issue. What I want to see is of the distinct
issues, what was thier place in 10-07, 11-07, 12-07 etc. As in a stacked
bar with the bar containing different colors for each month. As you look
at the chart you can see that it was a problem in NOV-07, went away in
1-08 and was reduced in 2-08. Does that explain it better?


YY MM DEFECT c_1000
====================================
2007 10 Porosity-Rear Case 2.18
2007 10 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 1.71
2007 10 Porosity-Rear Retainer 1.40
2007 10 Assembly Issues-High Bolt - Case 1.32
2007 10 Assembly Issues-Tight Mainshaft Spline 1.09
2007 11 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.64
2007 11 Porosity-Rear Retainer 2.56
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Shafts Do Not Rotate 1.92
2007 11 Leak-No Leak Found 1.52
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Tight Mainshaft Spline 1.28
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Misbuild 1.28
2007 12 Damaged-Motor 3.78
2007 12 Assembly Issues-Motor - Damaged 2.92
2007 12 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.27
2007 12 Leak-No Leak Found 1.62
2007 12 Noise-Shift Motor Noisy During Shift 1.51
2008 1 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.70
2008 1 Damaged-Motor 1.96
2008 1 Assembly Issues-Shafts Do Not Rotate 1.59
2008 1 Hick-All Gears 1.35
2008 1 Leak-No Leak Found 1.10



"Jon Peltier" wrote in message
...
How many possible issues are there? If it's less than a dozen or so, I'd
make a line chart and show them all (not just the five worst, but
perhaps the ones which are ever fifth worst), with incidence as the Y
values and month & year as X. This way you can see the trends over time,
and eyeball the five worst each month.

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Tutorials and Custom Solutions
Peltier Technical Services, Inc. - http://PeltierTech.com
_______


"Paul Ilacqua" wrote in message
...
I have a data set in the form as below and need to show the top 5 issues
per month in a chart. I'm
baffled as to how and what type of chart to best show this information.
I appreciate any direction someone could send me.
YY is year , MM is month etc...
Thanks
Paul

YY MM DEFECT c_1000
2007 10 Porosity-Rear Case 2.18
2007 10 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 1.71
2007 10 Porosity-Rear Retainer 1.40
2007 10 Assembly Issues-High Bolt - Case 1.32
2007 10 Assembly Issues-Tight Mainshaft Spline 1.09

2007 11 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.64
2007 11 Porosity-Rear Retainer 2.56
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Shafts Do Not Rotate 1.92
2007 11 Leak-No Leak Found 1.52
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Tight Mainshaft Spline 1.28
2007 11 Assembly Issues-Misbuild 1.28

2007 12 Damaged-Motor 3.78
2007 12 Assembly Issues-Motor - Damaged 2.92
2007 12 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.27
2007 12 Leak-No Leak Found 1.62
2007 12 Noise-Shift Motor Noisy During Shift 1.51

2008 1 Seal Leaks-Rear O/P ID 2.70
2008 1 Damaged-Motor 1.96
2008 1 Assembly Issues-Shafts Do Not Rotate 1.59
2008 1 Hick-All Gears 1.35
2008 1 Leak-No Leak Found 1.10