Listen to the voice of the process—a practical approach championed by Walter Shewhart.
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In their recent article, “We Do Need Good Measurements,” Professors Stefan H. Steiner and R. Jock MacKay take exception to two of my Quality Digest articles, “Don’t We Need Good Measurements?” and “The Intraclass Correlation Coefficient.” While we all want good measurements, the trick is in learning to live with imperfect measurements.
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There seem to be two major points to Steiner’s and MacKay’s critique. The first pertains to figure 1 below, and the second concerns my interpretation of what the curves in figure 1 mean in practice. As we investigate their criticisms, we will discover some divergent world views that I will discuss in the latter part of this column.
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Comments
Congratulations
Congratulations Don. Absolutely fantastic. So many folk fail to appreciate the beautiful simplicity of the Shewhart Chart with so much statistics backing it up. If wandering from Shewhart straight and narrow has such huge bear traps even for professors, it is no small wonder that the masses have fallen into so many smaller traps.
It is really quite astounding that Shewhart Charts could work so well, in REAL situations, despite such poor data.Even people who don't get swallowed by the nonsense of Six Sigma and it's control chart follies, still seem to feel that Shewhart Charts can not be so easy. They seem to feel the need for complex software to mess about with them in ways they don't understand. I've even heard one silly fellow claim that Shewhart Charts are 'old hat' and there are now 'more modern' ways. There is a desperate need for quality to get back to basics.
Thank you for a brilliant paper, Dr Wheeler.
Superb article containing
Superb article containing many pearls of profound knowledge. "There are people who are afraid of clarity because it may not seem profound" -Elton Trueblood
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