Content by Donald J. Wheeler
Mon, 04/04/2022 - 12:03
Acceptance sampling uses the observed properties of a sample drawn from a lot or batch to make a decision about whether to accept or reject that lot or batch. Although the textbooks are full of complex descriptions of various acceptance sampling…
Mon, 03/07/2022 - 12:03
Last month we looked at analyzing observational data. Here we will consider experimental data and discover a weakness in the way they are obtained that can contribute to the problem of nonreproducible results.
Background
The discipline of…
Mon, 02/07/2022 - 12:03
Most of the world’s data are obtained as byproducts of operations. These observational data track what happens over time and have a structure that requires a different approach to analysis than that used for experimental data. An understanding of…
Mon, 01/03/2022 - 12:03
On the face of it, it seems to be impossible for skewed variables to add up to a normally distributed result. Yet both common experience and mathematical theory combine to show us that this does indeed happen. In fact it is a fundamental property of…
Mon, 12/13/2021 - 12:03
Management requires prediction. However, when making predictions it is easy to torture the data until they surrender and tell you what you expect to hear. Even though this torture may be unintentional, it can keep you from hearing the story the data…
Mon, 11/08/2021 - 12:03
One of the most common questions about any production process is, “What is the fraction nonconforming?” Many different approaches have been used to answer this question. This article will compare the two most widely used approaches and define the…
Mon, 10/04/2021 - 12:03
First, let it be known that all charts for count-based data are charts for individual values. Regardless of whether we are working with a count or a rate, we obtain one value per time period and want to plot a point every time we get a value. This…
Tue, 09/07/2021 - 12:03
What do the shape statistics known as skewness and kurtosis tell us about our data? Last month we saw how the average and standard deviation define the balance point and radius of gyration for our data. Once we have these two quantities the…
Mon, 08/02/2021 - 12:03
Your software routinely gives you four descriptive statistics for your data: the average, the standard deviation, the skewness, and the kurtosis. Of these only the average is easy to understand. This article and the next illustrate what these…
Tue, 07/06/2021 - 12:03
Measurement error is ubiquitous. As a result, over the past 250 years, different areas of science and engineering have come up with many different ways to deal with the problem of measurement error. One approach to the problem of measurement error…
