IE423 PS1 Probability and Statistics Review

Probability Questions
1) A manufacturer of electronic calculators offers one-year warranty. If the calculator fails for any reason
during this period, it is replaced. The time to failure is well modeled by the following probability
distribution: 𝑓(𝑥)=0.125ⅇ −0.125𝑥 , 𝑥 >0
a) What percentage of the calculators will fail within the warranty period?
b) The manufacturing cost of a calculator is $50, and the profit per sale is $25. What is the effect of
warranty replacement on profit?

2) A random sample of 50 units is drawn from a production process every half hour. The fraction of
nonconforming product manufactured is 0.02. What is the probability that 𝑝̂ ≤ 0.04 if the fraction
nonconforming really is 0.02?

3) Glass bottles are formed by pouring molten glass into a mold. The molten glass is prepared in a furnace
lined with firebrick. As the firebrick wears, small pieces of brick are mixed into the molten glass and
finally appear as defects (called “stones”) in the bottle. If we can assume that stones occur randomly
at the rate of 𝜆 = 0.015 per bottle what is the probability that a bottle selected at random will contain

a) exactly one defect?

b) at least one defect?
c) Suppose that 10,000 glass bottles are produced daily. What is the expected daily loss due to
defective units given the unit cost of a bottle is $0.5?

4) The tensile strength of a metal part is normally distributed with a mean of 40 lb and standard deviation
8 lb. If 50,000 parts are produced, how many would fail to meet a minimum specification of 34-lb
tensile strength? How many would have a tensile strength exceeding 48 lb?
5) Match the following histograms to the box-plots. What information does each representation provide
that the other does not?

6) A mechatronic assembly is subjected to a final functional test. Suppose the defects occur at random in
these assemblies and that defects occur according to a Poisson distribution with parameter λ = 0.02.
a) What is the probability that an assembly will have exactly one defect?
b) What is the probability that an assembly will have one or more defects?
c) Suppose that you improve the process so that the occurrence rate of defects is cut in half to λ = 0.01.
What effect does this have on the probability that an assembly will have one or more defects?

7) A production process operates with 1% nonconforming output. Every hour a sample of 25 units of
product is taken and the number of nonconforming units counted. If one or more nonconforming units
are found, the process is stopped and the quality control technician must search for the cause of
nonconforming production. Evaluate the performance of this decision rule.

8) An electronic component for a medical x-ray unit is produced in lots of size 𝑁=25. An acceptance
testing procedure is used by the purchaser to protect against lots that contain too many nonconforming
components. The procedure consists of selecting five components at random from the lot (without
replacement) and testing them. If none of the components is nonconforming the lot is accepted. If the
lot contains two nonconforming components, what is the probability of lot acceptance?

9) The life of an automotive battery is normally distributed with mean 900 days and standard deviation 35
days. What fraction of these batteries would be expected to survive beyond 1000 days?
10) A textbook has 800 pages on which typographical errors could occur. Suppose that there are exactly 10
pages with such errors randomly located on those pages.
a) Find the probability that 50 randomly selected pages will contain at least two pages with errors.
b) Calculate the desired probability in part (a) using the Binomial, Poisson and Normal
approximations. Which approximations are satisfactory? Why?

Statistics Questions
11) An electronic component for a laser range-finder is produced in lots of size N=75. An acceptance
testing procedure is used by the purchaser to protect against lots that contain too many nonconforming
components. The procedure consists of selecting 5 components at random from the lot (without
replacement) and testing them. If none of the components is nonconforming the lot is accepted. If none
of the components is nonconforming, the lot is accepted.
a) If the lot contains three nonconforming components, what is the probability of acceptance?
b) Calculate the desired probability in part (a) using the Binomial, Poisson and Normal
approximations. Which approximations are satisfactory? Why?
c) Can we make the normal approximation reasonable by changing the number of the components at
each acceptance testing for this example?
12)
a) If the cholesterol level of healthy men is normally distributed with a mean of 180 and a standard
deviation of 20, and men with cholesterol levels over 225 are diagnosed as not healthy, what is the
probability of a type one error?
b) If the cholesterol level of healthy men is normally distributed with a mean of 180 and a standard
deviation of 20, at what level (in excess of 180) should men be diagnosed as not healthy if you
want the probability of a type one error to be 2%?
c) If men predisposed to heart disease have a mean cholesterol level of 300 with a standard deviation
of 30, but only men with a cholesterol level over 225 are diagnosed as predisposed to heart disease,
what is the probability of a type II error (the null hypothesis is that a person is not predisposed to
heart disease)?
d) If men predisposed to heart disease have a mean cholesterol level of 300 with a standard deviation
of 30, above what cholesterol level should you diagnose men as predisposed to heart disease if you
want the probability of a type II error to be 1%?
13) The output voltage of a power supply is assumed to be normally distributed. 16 observations taken at
random on voltage are as follows: 10.35, 9.30, 10.00, 9.96, 11.65, 12.00, 11.25, 9.58, 11.54, 9.95,
10.28, 8.37, 10.44, 9.25, 9.38, and 10.85.
a) Test the hypothesis that the mean voltage equals 12V against a two-sided alternative using 𝛼 =
0.05.
b) Construct a 95% two-sided confidence interval on 𝜇.
c) What should be the sample size that the width of 95% two-sided confidence interval on 𝜇 is 0.5V?
d) Test the hypothesis that 𝜎2 = 1 using 𝛼 = 0.05
e) Construct a 95% upper confidence interval on 𝜎.

14) A new purification unit is installed in a chemical process. Before its installation, a random sample
yielded the following data about the percentage of impurity: 𝑥̅1 = 9.85, 𝑠12 = 6.79, and 𝑛1 = 10. After
installation, a random sample resulted in 𝑥̅2 = 8.08, 𝑠22 = 6.18, and 𝑛2 = 8.
a) Can you conclude that the two variances are equal? Use 𝛼 = 0.05.
b) Can you conclude that the new purification device has reduced the mean percentage of impurity?
Use 𝛼 = 0.05.
15) The Acme Battery Company has developed a new cell phone battery. On average, the battery lasts 60
minutes on a single charge according to a normal distribution. The standard deviation is 4 minutes.
Suppose the manufacturing department runs a quality control test. They randomly select 7 batteries.
The standard deviation of the selected batteries is 6 minutes.
a) Calculate the chi square statistics?
b) Doest this sample support the claim that standard deviation is 4? Answer by making a hypothesis
test with 0.05 significance level.
c) Calculate a 95% confidence interval for population standard deviation.

16) An engineer measured the Brinell hardness of 25 pieces of ductile iron (which is known to be normally
distributed) that were subcritically annealed. According to resulting data average Brinell hardness of
the n = 25 pieces of ductile iron was 172.52 with a standard deviation of 10.31. The engineer
hypothesized that the mean Brinell hardness of all such ductile iron pieces is greater than 170. Make
a hypothesis test with 95% confidence level.

17) A purchaser buys ceramic material from two different supplier and claims that the products of the first
supplier has higher variance with respect to their strength than of the second one. Two batches of 240
pieces each are taken test this hypothesis. The average ceramic strength is found to be 688.999 and
611.156, and the standard deviation is 65.549 and 61.854, respectively. Make a hypothesis test with
0.05 significance level.