1st Edition
by D. H. Stamatis (Author)
The essence of any root cause
analysis in our modern quality thinking is to go beyond the actual
problem. This means not only do we have to fix the problem at hand but
we also have to identify why the failure occurred and what was the
opportunity to apply the appropriate knowledge to avoid the problem in
the future. Essential Statistical Concepts for the Quality Professional
offers a new non-technical statistical approach to quality for
effective improvement and productivity by focusing on very specific and
fundamental methodologies and tools for the future.
Written
by an expert with more than 30 years of experience in management,
quality training, and consulting, the book examines the fundamentals of
statistical understanding, and by doing so demonstrates the importance
of using statistics in the decision making process. The author points
out pitfalls to keep in mind when undertaking an experiment for
improvement and explains how to use statistics in improvement endeavors.
He discusses data interpretation, common tests and confidence
intervals, and how to plan experiments for improvement. The book expands
the notion of experimentation by dealing with mathematical models such
as regression to optimize the improvement and understand the
relationship between several factors. It emphasizes the need for
sampling and introduces specific techniques to make sure accuracy and
precision of the data is appropriate and applicable for the study at
hand.
The author’s approach is somewhat new and unique;
however, he details tools and methodologies that can be used to evaluate
the system for prevention. These tools and methodologies focus on
structured, repeatable processes that can be instrumental in finding
real, fixable causes of the human errors and equipment failures that
lead to quality issues.
