Customer Reviews

Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control (Dover Books on Mathematics)

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This book is the culmination of the philosophy of Dr. Shewhart . Dr. Shewhart was virtually unknown till he delivered a series of lectures which were then edited and converted into this book by W. Edwards Deming . Dr. Deming recognised the importance of these lectures and felt that this would be the best way to popularise Shewhart's works . Shewhart's earlier book " Economic Control of Quality in Manufactured Product " was the second recorded book on Quality ( 1931 ) . His concepts of the " old Way " and " New Way " of doing businesses are relevant even today . Shewhart touched on topics which Management gurus refer to even today . This book first introduced the " Scientific Method of Improvement " which we now know as the Shewhart - Deming PDSA cycle for improvement . All in all a timeless piece of writing and a must for every Quality / Management fanatic.

This may be the most inaccesible management book I've ever read. I picked it because of Shewart's exalted position in the quality movement - as the mentor and intellectual guide to Deming, he is the theorist behind the quality of our cars, VCRs and televisions.

Unfortunately, his writing is enormously hard to read and apply. The mathematics were very hard to penetrate - dozens of pages to even get to basing control charts on standard deviations. I've got a minor in mathematics, so I was suprised by the difficulty. It was near impossible to derive quality lessons from the book.

In deference to the author, I'll make a lot of excuses for him:
- It was written a long time ago.
- The book was aimed at statisticians, not managers.
- A compilation of Shewart's ideas would be more effective than lecture notes.

My end recommendation - browse before you buy.

A Classic of its time, many managers today are not aware of the genius of Shewhart. In fact Deming himself attributes most of his ideas to Shewhart. There are many Management Gurus today who pay scant regard to the contributions of Shewhart and pass off their work as original but on closer examination you will find the mind of Shewhart once you remove the modern spin.

Excellent method and logical thinking. Its worth persisting with the old fashioned language to get the true voice of the genius.

Its about time this man received the recognition he deserves.

I picked up this book because I've been recently delving into the works of W. Edward Deming. I find it incredible that his works aren't taught in school, but I also as a previous reviewer has stated, this book is not for the statistical beginner or even intermediate. I do have a college degree and consider myself intelligent and stronger than average in math, but this is not an easy book to understand.