The Binomial Distribution Is Frequently Used to Help Companies Decide

Essay

The binomial distribution is frequently used to help companies decide whether to accept or reject a shipment based on the results of a random sample of items from the shipment. For instance, suppose a contract calls for, at most, 10 percent of the items in a shipment to be red. To check this without looking at every item in the large shipment, a sample of n = 10 items is selected. If 1 or fewer are red, the shipment is accepted; otherwise it is rejected. Using probability, determine whether this is a "good" sampling plan. (Assume that a bad shipment is one that has 20 percent reds.)