The Power of Statistical Thinking: Improving Industrial Processes (Engineering Process Improvement Series)

Rating:
Summary: Hey look! a good statistics book and no complex integrals!
Review: Coming from three academians this book is suprisingly practical. I recommend it to anyone who is in manufacturing and wants to utilize SPC charts in quality improvement and Engineering Process Control (EPC). What makes this book unique is that the authors acomplished to explain SPC applications to both attributes data and variables data without any complex formulas. That is a very distinct importance if you are in a process industry such as chemical, food, paper, cement, etc. where you measure temperature, pressure, PH, level and color rather than the dimensions of a part for compliance and also where you may not have subgroups but just samples. Most other books I have read dealt with attributes data for parts industries exclusively. This book includes many advise and examples for managers and engineers. Definetely a must for engineers and quality professionals who have been out of school for a while and realizing the importance of the SPC and EPC in a competitive market. A prerequisite for Six sigma white(!) belts too, but may be too simplistic for experienced practicians. If you are an engineer, after reading this book buy a copy of "Statistical Control by Monitoring and Feedback Adjustment" by George Box and Alberto Luceno (available at Amazon.com) and don't forget to send a thank you note to authors of both books.

Rating:
Summary: Very good book by actual users of the methods they discuss
Review: This is an excellent book. The three authors (Leitnaker, Sanders and Hild) actually use the methods they discuss. They provide a careful conceptual and philosophical discussion of process study and improvement using control charts and related tools.

The emphasis is NOT on covering a large number of tools (for that, other books might be more appropriate) but instead on enabling the statistically unsophisticated user to understand how to actually USE the methods.

The authors use case studies extensively in the book to motivate the methods and to illustrate their use.

Highly recommended. It might not be the ONLY book on "SPC" which you should buy, but if you buy any books on SPC, this book should be one of them.

Bill Parr

Rating:
Summary: Thoughtful -- written for real engineers
Review: You don't have to be a statistician to be able to use this book. Gives practical talk on use of statistics using thought processes any engineer can relate to. Buy this one.