Joel Smith

Senior business development representative

Minitab Inc.

Joel Smith is a senior business development representative at Minitab LLC, developer of statistical software headquartered in Pennsylvania.

Tue, 05/29/2012 - 12:20
Gauging Gage, Part 3How do you choose parts for a GR&R study?
Tue, 05/23/2017 - 12:02
In parts one and two of “Gauging Gage,” we looked at the numbers of parts, operators, and replicates used in a gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and how accurately we could estimate %Contribution based on the choice for each.…
Gauging Gage, Part 2What if you increased the number of operators or replicates?
Tue, 05/16/2017 - 12:02
In part one of “Gauging Gage,” I looked at how adequate a sampling of 10 parts is for a gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) study and provided some advice based on the results. Now I want to turn my attention to the other two factors…
Gauging Gage, Part 1How accurately can you assess your measurement system with 10 parts?
Tue, 05/09/2017 - 12:02
‘You take 10 parts and have three operators measure each two times.” This standard approach to a gage repeatability and reproducibility (GR&R) experiment is so common, so accepted, so ubiquitous, that few people ever question whether it is…
Submitting an A+ Presentation Abstract, Even About StatisticsDos and don’ts
Thu, 03/03/2016 - 15:43
For the majority of my career with Minitab, I’ve had the opportunity to speak somewhat regularly at conferences and other events. I thought some of my talks were pretty good, and some were not so good (based on ratings, audiences didn't always…
Combining Tools of the Past and PresentThe i-test
Thu, 08/06/2015 - 14:57
Just 100 years ago, very few statistical tools were available and the field was largely unknown. Since then, there has been an explosion in available tools, as well as ever-increasing awareness and use of statistics. Although most readers of this…
How Major League Baseball Fails to Protect PitchersMisinterpreting line drive data is akin to ‘running with scissors’
Tue, 07/14/2015 - 12:16
Last month, the ESPN series Outside the Lines reported on baseball pitchers suffering serious injuries from being struck in the head by line drives, and the efforts that Major League Baseball (MLB) is making toward having protective gear developed…
The Brownie of BlednochWhat really motivates?
Thu, 02/26/2015 - 11:08
I typically attend a few lean Six Sigma conferences each year, and at each there’s at least one session about compensating belts. There are any number of ideas for how to do so, but they commonly include systems that provide a percentage of savings…
Poisson Processes and the Probability of Poop...it happens
Thu, 01/15/2015 - 15:03
On a recent vacation, I was unsuccessfully trying to reunite with my family outside a busy shopping mall and starting to get a little stressed. I was on a crowded sidewalk, in a busy city known for crime, and it was raining. I thought there was no…
Taking the Training Wheels OffRethinking how lean Six Sigma is taught
Wed, 09/03/2014 - 16:27
Learning to ride a bike is a rite of passage for any kid, so much so that we even use the expression “taking the training wheels off” for all kinds of situations. We say it to mean that we are going to let someone perform an activity on his own…
Blind Wine, Part 4Evaluating participant results
Thu, 07/31/2014 - 17:10
In part 1, part 2, and part 3, we shared our blind wine-tasting experiment, the survey results, and the experimental results, respectively. To wrap things up, we’re going to see if the survey results tied to the experimental results in any…