Statistical Process Control

Reviews / Votes

"Whether your sector is manufacturing, sales, marketing, finance, service or public, this instructional guide to the tools of SPC is an essential practical guide." QUALITY WORLD (Feb 2003) "Written for managers, technologists, engineers, scientists and students alike, the book uses the minimum of formulas and assumes no prior knowledge of statistics. It covers all the necessary theory and techniques in a practical and non-mathematical manner. The book gives the foundations of good quality management and process control, including an explanation of what quality is, and discusses control of conformance and consistency during production." WORKS MANAGEMENT (Jan 2003) People in management and leadership positions often do not understand variation. As a result, instead of having a stabilising effect, they frequently over-react to events leading to wasted efforts, disorganisation and chaos. The authors advice is: Dont just do something, sit there (and think)! Statistical process control (SPC) is a tool for understanding processes, and thus helping managers in decision-making, so that organisations can improve quality and reduce wasted resources. It is a method to stop producing chaos by reducing management interference. This soft-cover book is a practical guide for SPC and does not presuppose prior statistical or process management knowledge. It also sets out the philosophyessential to the practiceof process management and improvement. There are 15 chapters divided into five sections, with 11 appendices. Each chapter has figures and tables that enhance elucidation, and examples of real-world applications are scattered throughout. The first section, Process understanding, looks at design, conformance and costs of quality. Next, Process variability is split into two chapters. Process control has four chapters that discuss control charts for variables and attributes, and cumulative sum charts. The shortest section, Process capability, has only 14 pages, but adequately presents several capability indices (however, not the well-known CPM index). The last section, Process Improvement, has five chapters, including a new chapter on six sigma. There is a good five-page index and each chapter ends with a list of references. This book would be an excellent tool for managers, engineers and others actively involved in understanding, analysing and improving processes. It is also suitable for business and engineering students, with each chapter providing learning objectives and discussion questions. I was particularly impressed by the ease with which a reader could use it for implementing SPC. It should be in the library of all organisations and on the bookcase of all individuals involved in process design, evaluation, control and continuous improvement of performance, products or services. Mark A. Best, Eastview, June 2005 edition of "Significance - statistics making sense", a publication of the Royal Statistical Society