Box on Quality and Discovery: With Design, Control, and Robustness [Hardcover]

George C. Tiao (Editor), S?ren Bisgaard (Editor), William J. Hill (Editor), Daniel Peña (Editor), Stephen M. Stigler (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 18, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0471387681 | ISBN-13: 978-0471387688 | Edition: 1

This is a special, one-time volume, commemorating the 80th birthday of George E. P. Box. It contains over 75 articles on quality and quality-related issues, written by Box himself since 1982. Previous to this book, the editors published a similar volume on Box' writings up to 1982; it has since become a standard and useful reference for students and practitioners alike in the field of statistics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"As a final treat for the readers, a sixth section gives the lyrics to three of Professor Box's famous statistician party songs..." (Technometrics, Vol. 42, No. 4, May 2001 )

"The book under review...is not simply a collection of Dr. Box's work; the introductions to each part provide discussions of the topics, how they were developed,and the motivation behind the techniques described which are not available elsewhere." (Journal of Quality Technology, Vol. 33, No. 3, July 2001)

"Reviewing this book was an enjoyable task. The organization is excellent and provides something for everyone...a text which is accessible to a wide range of readers with an equally wide range of technical ability. It would be an appropriate and valuable addition to any researcher?s library." (Journal of Quality Technology, Vol. 33, No. 3, July 2001)

"...this incomparable volume has important theoretical underpinnings and a depth of discussion that is seldom found in similar books...this book is destined to remain the definitive reference on statistical quality for many years to come. I recommend this outstanding book over all others as a reference." (IIE Transactions on Quality and Reliability Engineering)

"...a nice reference for the bookshelf of a quality engineer or statistician...full of useful...information, techniques, and explanations...language is clear, yet elegant..." (Technometrics, Vol. 45, No. 1, February 2003)

From the Back Cover

A collection of masterworks on quality technology from the giant in the field

The chapters of this book are from the recent writings of George E. P. Box, an acknowledged world leader in the application and theory of quality methodology to management, process improvement, process design, and discovery.

Box’s unique ability to explain complex ideas simply and appealingly with wit and cogent illustration is well known. It draws on profound knowledge and extensive industrial experience. In the past, these abilities have led to the creation of such techniques as response surface methods, time series analysis for forecasting and control, evolutionary operation, and applied Bayesian methods.

Over the past fifteen years, Box’s work with many distinguished colleagues has been directed to the development and better understanding of quality techniques and how they can drive creativity and discovery. Key features of Box on Quality and Discovery include:

• Five separate sections on (I) management issues, (II) experimental design, (III) sequential investigation for discovery, (IV) process control for monitoring and feedback adjustment, and (V) reduction of variation and design of robust products and processes
• Edited by five eminent quality practitioners and statisticians from industry and academia
• Superb subject and author index for easy reference
• An additional key contribution from Stu Hunter

Published in celebration of George Box’s 80th birthday, this incomparable volume is destined to remain the definitive reference on statistical quality for many years to come.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Wiley-Interscience; 1 edition (August 18, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471387681
• ISBN-13: 978-0471387688
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.7 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,960,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the insights of Box and statistical parodies of songs too, January 24, 2008

By 

Michael R. Chernick "statman31147" (Holland PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Box on Quality and Discovery: With Design, Control, and Robustness (Hardcover)

George Box is one of the statistical giants of the 20th Century. He started his career in chemical engineering in England where he learned the importance of experimental design and statistical methods. He came to the US in 1953 and spent time at North Carolina State College and later came back to be part of the statistics group at Princeton. After that he founded the Department fo Statistics at the University of Wisconsin. This history and other important career decisions icluding the founding of Technometrics are detailed in the brief section "My Professional Life" that he wrote for this volume.
Box's contributions to statistics are diverse and large. He developed many practical statistical designs including the central composite design. He is responsible for evolutionary operation and wrote a book on it with Norman Draper. He has also made major contributions to response surface methodology.

With Gwilym Jenkins he systematized the application of the ARIMA models and led the development of software for easy application of these model building techniques. He championed the concept of parsimonious models and insisted that model building should be an iterative and continually evolving technique. He contributed to the area of control through his stochastic time series models and found ways to incorporate it in manufacturing process control.

With David Cox he developed the Box-Cox family of transformations. These simple power transformation can be used to make the data have an approximate normal shape. he gave a prescription for how to estimate or pick the power to use based on the data.

These enormous contributions can be found in the volumes of collected works that Tiao and others have edited. His contributions can also be seen from his books on evolutionary operation, time series analysis, automated process control, empirical model building and response surfaces, and practical experimental designs ("Statistics for Experimenters").

However in the decades of the 80s and 90s from age 60 to 80, instead of retiring, George Box took on the challenge of developing a center for quality and productivity at the University of Wisconsin. This volme, edited by Tiao, Bisgaard, Hill, Pena and Stigler provides a collection of articles by Box. These are mostly articles written in the 1990s covering the subjects of A) continuous process improvement, B) designing experiments to gain quality information, C) sequential investigation and discovery (including response surface methods), D) quality control and E) learning how to identify and reduce variation or be less sensitive to it by constructing robust processes (i.e. processes not sensitive to minor changes in process parameters). The articles are mostly directed toward quality issues and are mostly articles that were published in the 1990s or 2000 with a few from the 80s. Some are important technical contributions but many are also very philosophical.

George Box is one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and his philosophy on statistics and scientific inference is as important as his many technical contributions. There are 46 articles in total 4 on topic A, 12 on B, 10 on C, 11 on D and 9 on E. Each topic area has a brief introduction identifying a unifying theme in the papers in that section.

Box has a terrific sense of humor that often comes out in his lectures and sometimes in his writings. One gets a good appreciation of it by reading the three songs on statistics that are included in Part F of the book. This is only a sample of several that he has written that are parodies of familiar tunes. Of these three my favorite is "There's no theorem like Bayes theorem" to the tune of "There's no business like show business."

There is a nice bibliography in the back of the book that is followed by a biography on Box and a list of his books and articles published between 1982 and 1999. This includes 3 books and 91 articles! Believe it or not he published even more in his earlier years.