ABSTRACT
JOURNAL: I think I’m getting the “soft sell.” My quality guy keeps talking to me in statistical terms. Not formulas, Greek letters, and that sort of thing, but more like statistical logic, if that makes any sense. Our conversation on inspection efficiency is an example. Next, he’s talking in conversational terms about variability, as if I knew what he was talking about. Then almost before I knew it I did know what he was talking about. The son of a gun has infected me! I find myself listening to these debates that we have with statistical filters between me and what I’m hearing. When I do that, what I hear doesn’t make a lot of sense. One of our guys prefaced an analysis he was about to present with “For the sake of convenience, assume that ….”I lost it again. I said, “What you’re doing is assuming that the process is predictable and without variation. Yes, that sure is convenient! You might just as well assume for convenience’ sake that there’s no law ofgravity and walk out the window at the end of this meeting as assume what you’re assuming. Variability is a law of nature, just like the law ofgravity. In this case variability is what it’s all about. Let’s move to the next agenda item. When 148you’ve quantified the variability then come back and well talk some more.” It was funny actually. Every head in the room, including mine (I’d just heard what I’d said), turned to look at the quality guy. He just shrugged and grinned. Now he’s got me doing it. I just might ask our resident wise guy to put together a short seminar on statistical thinking for us. No formulas or Greek letters, just the kind of thing he has done to me. It will be fun to watch him do it to someone else for a change. Most of us had some statistics in college. But somehow we never learned to think statistically.
