Jody Muelaner
In a general sense, capability is the ability to do something. Within manufacturing, capability is given a much more specific definition. It is an expression of the accuracy of a process or equipment...
Donald J. Wheeler
Recently I have had several questions about which bias correction factors to use when working with industrial data. Some books use one formula, other books use another, and the software may use a...
Rohit Mathur
Whatever the process or type of data collected, all data display variation. This is also true in software development. Any measure or parameter of interest to our business will vary from time period...
Donald J. Wheeler
During the past three months James Beagle and I presented columns that made extensive use of analysis of means techniques. Since these techniques may be new to some, this column explains when to use...
Romesh Saigal
Soon after the Great Recession, the U.S. stock markets plunged—and rebounded within 36 minutes. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 9 percent, losing more than 1,000 points before...
Scott A. Hindle
In everyday language, “in control” and “under control” are synonymous with “in specification.” Requirements have been met. Things are OK. No trouble.
“Out of control,” on the other hand, is...
Chad Kymal
During the early 1980s, GM, Ford, and Chrysler established the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG), a not-for-profit organization with the mission “To improve its members’ competitiveness through...
Davis Balestracci
Recently, I’ve had a sad, increasing sense of déjà vu. Twitter has become even more vacuous, and LinkedIn has quickly devolved into a business version of Facebook. Literally right after I...
James Beagle III
In Parts One and Two we defined the equivalence of instruments in terms of bias and measurement error based on studies using a single standard. Here we look at comparing instruments for differences...
Jay Arthur—The KnowWare Man
When I first learned quality improvement back in 1989 at Florida Power and Light, the consultants who trained us taught a very specific way to draw a Pareto chart. They’d been trained in Japan, the...
Ryan E. Day
Current business conversation often focuses on data and big data. Data are the raw information from which statistics are created and provide an interpretation and summary of data. Statistics make it...
William A. Levinson
Anthony Chirico1 describes how narrow-limit gauging (NLG, aka compressed limit plans) can reduce enormously the required sample size, and therefore the inspection cost, of a traditional attribute...
Adam Pintar
Now, if you’re familiar with either statistics or J.R.R. Tolkien, I know the title grabbed your attention. And if not, don’t worry; all will become clear in time, but I’ve always wanted to reference...
Donald J. Wheeler
Last month we provided an operational definition of when measurement systems are equivalent in terms of bias. Here we will look at comparing the within-instrument measurement error between two or...
Edwin Amenta
Ever since sportswriter Henry Chadwick popularized the box score in the 19th century, baseball fans have had a love affair with statistics. Many can recite records like Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting...
Donald J. Wheeler
As soon as we have two or more instruments for measuring the same property the question of equivalence raises its head. This paper provides an operational definition of when two or more...
Davis Balestracci
In most healthcare settings, workers attend weekly, monthly, or quarterly meetings where performances are reported, analyzed, and compared to goals in an effort to identify trends. Reports often...
Teofilo Cortizo
Within maintenance management, the term MTBF (mean time between failures) is the most important key performance indicator after physical availability.
Unlike MTTF (mean time to failure), which...
Donald J. Wheeler
Managers the world over want to know if things are “in control.” This usually is taken to mean that the process is producing 100-percent conforming product, and to this end an emphasis is placed upon...
Davis Balestracci
During recent visits to Twitter and LinkedIn, I’ve become increasingly shocked by the devolution of the posts to vacuous nonsense. I felt a Network moment of, “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to...
