As this is my last column for Quality Digest, I’m delighted to announce that my distinguished predecessor, Donald J. Wheeler, will be writing this column again. You’ll be in good hands.

When I got my master’s degree in statistics in 1980, jobs were plentiful for internal statistical consultants in corporate research and manufacturing. Their jobs involved educating scientists and engineers in the power of applied statistical methods, especially experimental design. Excellent research in applied methods was performed and collegially disseminated by distinguished groups, most notably DuPont, Kodak, and General Electric. I was part of a strong internal group at 3M. Those groups, for all intents and purposes, have now vanished.

Statistical process control (SPC) became more dominant during the late 1980s. Everything became “bigger, better, faster, more, now!” Suddenly there wasn’t time to do response surface experimental designs, except maybe 2² or 2³ factorials and a replication--if you were lucky. See “Using Design of Experiments as a Process Road Map” ( www.qualitydigest.com/feb06/articles/02_article.shtml ).

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