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Thanksgiving Fire Statistics Make Me Grateful for Smoke Detectors
In the United States, most of us associate Thanksgiving with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and stuffing...specifically, the stuffing of our faces with the aforementioned edibles. But it's...
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Six Sigma and Lean: Doing It to Keep Kids Healthy
We tend to associate Six Sigma, Lean, TQM, and other quality improvement methods with industries like manufacturing. But using statistics and data analysis to solve problems is a process that's...
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Does Design of Experiments Explain Contradictory Research Results?
Design of experiments, experimental design, or just "gathering some data." Whatever you want to call it, your approach to doing it will affect the results you get. Have you ever wondered about all...
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What Statistical Hypothesis Test Should I Use?
So, you collected some data and now you want it to tell you something meaningful. Unfortunately, your last statistics class was years ago and you can't quite remember what to do with that data. You...
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Guidelines and How-Tos for the 2-Sample T-test
In my last post, I revealed how the Assistant in Minitab Statistical Software could guide me to the right statistical hypothesis test, even though I'd forgotten everything I once knew about...
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Choosing the Right Distribution Model for Reliability Data
Recently I've been refreshing my knowledge of reliability analysis, which is the use of data to assess a product's ability to perform over time. Quality engineers typically use reliability analysis to...
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Monte Carlo Is Not as Difficult as You Think
Before I started studying statistics, references to a mysterious "Monte Carlo Method" made it seem like the most cryptic thing in the data-analysis universe. People were developing programs dedicated...
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FMEA: A Good Way to Save Yourself Some Grief
In the past couple of years, I've noticed a new acronym popping up across the Web. In case you've not yet encountered it, "FML" typically appears in social media updates about something gone awry. As...
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Bewildering Things Statisticians Say: "Failure to Reject the Null Hypothesis"
Subcultures have languages all their own. Teen gangs, statisticians, gamers, music buffs, sports nuts, furries...all use terminology that baffles outsiders.The arcane language helps identify kindred...
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A Story-based Approach to Learning Statistics (and Statistical Software)
Want to learn more about analyzing data? Try taking a page from Aesop's book. Well...really, I'm suggesting taking multiple pages from Minitab's book, but my suggestion stems from an idea that Aesop...
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Why the Weibull Distribution Is Always Welcome
In college I had a friend who could go anywhere and fit right in. He'd have lunch with a group of professors, then play hacky-sack with the hippies in the park, and later that evening he'd hang out...
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Why Isn't This "Six Sigma" Project Improving Quality?
Whether you're a quality improvement veteran or you're just starting to do research about what quality improvement methods are available today, you've seen headlines and articles that explain why Six...
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Choosing Statistical Software: Four Questions You Should Ask
Data. Analysis. Statistics. It seems like everybody is talking about the importance of doing data analysis, whether it's analytics for predicting consumer behavior or looking at critical metrics for...
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Getting Started with Factorial Design of Experiments (DOE)
When I talk to quality professionals about how they use statistics, one tool they mention again and again is design of experiments, or DOE. I'd never even heard the term before I started getting...
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What Statistical Software Should You Choose: Three More Critical Questions
Earlier I wrote about four important questions you should ask if you're looking at using statistical software to analyze data in your organization, especially if you're hoping to improve quality using...
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Enough Is Enough! Handling Multicollinearity in Regression Analysis
In regression analysis, we look at the correlations between one or more input variables, or factors, and a response. We might look at how baking time and temperature relate to the hardness of a piece...
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Explaining Quality Statistics So My Boss Will Understand: Measurement Systems...
As a teenaged dishwasher at a local eatery, I had a boss who'd never washed dishes in a restaurant himself. I once spent 40 minutes trying to convince him that forks and spoons should go in their...
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Explaining Quality Statistics So Your Boss Will Understand: Pareto Charts
I once had a boss who had difficulty understanding many, many things. When I need to discuss statistical concepts with people who don't have a statistical background, I like to think about how I could...
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Talking Design of Experiments (DOE) and Quality at the 2013 ASQ World Conference
The 2013 ASQ World Conference is taking place this week in Indianapolis, Indiana, and it's been a treat to see how our software was used in the projects highlighted in many of the presentations. As a...
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The Diversity (and Consistency) of Quality Improvement: the 2013 ASQ ITEA...
I'm in the airport at Indianapolis, waiting to go home after three exciting days at the 2013 American Society for Quality World Conference. As I write this, it's Wednesday evening after the...
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