CHAPTER 6Process Improvement and Problem-Solving Tools
If you have an opportunity to make things better and you don't, you're wasting your time.
—Roberto Clemente (Hall of Fame Baseball Player)
Chapter 5 illustrated three specific frameworks for applying holistic improvement: (1) the problem-solving framework, (2) the process improvement framework, and (3) the statistical engineering framework. In this chapter, we present many of the individual tools used in these approaches. The main learning objective is to develop the functional capability to apply these tools to real applications of these frameworks. You should apply these tools to your own project to gain experience and successfully complete your project.
Each of these frameworks attempts to take a statistical problem and derive a statistical solution by acquiring data, understanding the data pedigree, and conducting an appropriate analysis of the data. Subject matter knowledge is foundational to each of these steps. This approach was illustrated in Figure 3.16, which we reproduce below as Figure 6.1.
To understand how each tool fits into the bigger picture given in Figure 6.1, we discuss when and why each tool should be applied. These tools are frequently applied as part of the problem-solving, process improvement, or statistical engineering frameworks, but they can also be applied as stand-alones—that is, separate from the use of any of these frameworks.
FIGURE 6.1 The Role of Subject Matter Knowledge in Statistical ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
