Talk:Walter A. Shewhart/Archives/2012

Not sure where this fits in
Or if it does, but I created http://www.statisticool.com/shewhart.htm which has some biographical information on Walter and Edna Shewhart, with some interesting pictures.

Noise vs. Signal

 * Some data contains "noise" some data contains "signal." To be able to extract the information from the any data set one must separate the noise from the signal.

Shouldn't it say most data contains both signal and noise? The idea is not to separate the data that cotains the signal from the data that contains the noise, but rather to separate the signal from the noise within the data. Michael Hardy 20:01, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, when I cited Shewhart's Rules for Data Presentation I meant: Which is how Don Wheeler quotes them in Understanding Variation. Other than that, I agree that User:Michael Hardy's words capture the sentiment better Cutler 13:59, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * 1) Data should always be presented in such a way as to preserve the evidence in the data for all the predictions that mught be made from the data.
 * 2) Whenever an average, range or histogram is used to summarise observations, the summary must not mislead the user into taking any action that the user would not take if the data were presented in context.

Factual error
from the article: "In 1938 his work came to the attention of physicists W. Edwards Deming and Raymond T. Birge."

"1925-26 Deming worked at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company on research with telephone transmitters, thus becoming aware of Shewhart's work." A Brief History of Dr. W. Edwards Deming British Deming Association SPC Press, Inc. 1992

Deming met Shewhart in 1927. The 1938 reference is to lectures Shewhart made at the USDA which led to Deming editing these for publication as Shewhart's 1939 book. Deming and Shewhart had a history before the lectures at UDSA. Leaders100 16:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * from the article: "Bell Telephone had already realised the importance of reducing variation in a manufacturing process. Moreover, they had realised that continual process-adjustment in reaction to non-conformance actually increased variation and degraded quality." A reference is needed for these statements. The context for these statements seems to indicate that Bell Telephone had this understanding in 1918.
 * The following statements from "Western Electric - A Brief History" challenge the information in the article that Bell Telephone understood these concepts in 1918: "When Dr. Shewhart joined the Inspection Engineering Department at Hawthorne in 1918, industrial quality was limited to inspecting finished products and removing defective items. That all changed in May 1924." http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/westernelectric_history.html Leaders100 17:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * from the article: "One visit in the 1950s resulted in a collaboration with Genichi Taguchi (& R. A. Fisher? - does anyone have any info on Shewhart in India?). He also visited Japan. (Does anyone know anything about Shewhart in Japan?)"
 * Shewhart in Japan is very questionable. There are no published references on this. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN STATISTICAL INSTITUTE states: "Walter A. Shewhart (the originator of SQC) came to India at the invitation of the Institute in 1947-48, toured the country, held conferences and stimulated interest among Indian industrialists." There is no mention of collaboration with Taguchi or Fisher during these visits. Fisher visited India in 1938. "The ISI also played a pioneering role in starting the Statistical Quality Control (SQC) movement in India by organising a visit of Professor W.A. Shewhart, the father of SQC, to India in November, 1947 and later by inviting other experts like W.E. Deming, Dr. Ellis R Ott, Dr. H.C. Tippet and Genichi Taguchi for the same purpose." http://www.isical.ac.in/history.html http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/APCITY/UNPAN012131.pdf Leaders100 11:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)