As an engineer, I never had much sympathy for statistics, infinitesimal calculus, and the like. I always had a special taste for those fields in which I could visualize a practical application in a simple and immediate way, and I developed a high degree of curiosity for mechanical manufacturing, thermotechnics or the kinematics of mechanisms.
Recently, I have been reconciled with statistical methods and their importance, thanks to the book “El Control de Procesos en la Mejora de la Variabilidad y el Coste“ by Francisco Herrera Fernández.
In a first introductory part, he recalls the foundations on which Process Control is built. It deals with the concepts of the Basic Theory of Probabilities, Distributions and the Normal Curve, to later enter into more dense material, such as the Elaboration and interpretation of XR charts and the Potential Quality Capacity.
Regarding this last section, if you want to know more about it, we recommend you to read the post What is Cpk in our blog measurecontrol.
I found the annexes section to be particularly successful, with practical reflections on topics as varied as “Investing in Quality, not spending on Failures, Troubleshooting and the .) Decide what is best” or “Tolerances, Standard Deviation and Warning Limits, applying SPC”, based on his long experience in this field.
With an agile and pleasant reading, and supported by wonderful visual graphs, tables, images and examples, Francisco Herrera reminds all those who were looking at routine annotations and calculations with a certain laziness, of the importance of gathering the information well, analyzing it better if possible, deciding with precision and haste and finally, acting accordingly.
In short, a book that manages to reconcile you with statistical concepts because, despite having them integrated in our working life, it is never too much to remember that there is no better “watchman” for the control of our processes.
