Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control

Excerpt from the Foreword: In March of 1938 Dr. Shewhart, through the courtesy of the Bell Telephone Laboratories, delivered a series of four lectures under the title of this book at the Graduate School of the Department of Agriculture. Of late years there has been a tremendous interest among agricultural research workers in distribution theory and in statistical testing of hypotheses, as a consequence of which there has grown up a corresponding thirst for knowledge and new methods in inference. The Graduate School has persistently endeavored to supply the requisite academic courses, and to supplement them wherever possible by lecturers from other fields and other lands. Such is a brief description of the circumstances under which Dr. Shewhart came to Washington. Excerpt from the Preface: Statistical methods of research have been highly developed in the field of agriculture. Similarly, statistical methods of control have been developed by industry for the purpose of attaining economic control of quality of product in mass production. It is reasonable to expect that much is to be gained by correlating so far as possible the development of these two kinds of statistical techniques. In the hope of helping to effect this correlation, it was with pleasure that I accepted the invitation to give a series of four lectures on statistical method from the viewpoint of quality control before the Graduate School of the Department of Agriculture. The subject matter of these lectures is limited to an exposition of some of the elementary but fundamental principles and techniques basic to the efficient use of the statistical method in the attainment of a state of statistical control, the establishment of tolerance limits, the presentation of data, and the specification of accuracy and precision.