Why We Use Statistics
podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg
You may fondly, or most likely not fondly, remember your undergraduate course on probability and statistics. The calculations of various winning hands with card games were interesting and connected to the early ‘invention’ of probability and statistical methods. Yet, the jar with colored beads was rather boring.
From drive time to upload speeds, from production output per hour to defects per unit, we are surrounded by things and processes that vary. With most things, there are many factors at play contributing to variation. Those variations and the means to discuss them in a meaningful way are the essence of statistics.
Let’s explore the many ways we use, or should use, statistics in our engineering role. From gathering data to presenting, from analyzing to comparing, we have a wide range of tools available that ‘probably’ (pun intended) will have a ‘significant’ (did it again) impact on your ability to make a difference with what you do.
This Accendo Reliability webinar was originally broadcast on 8 February 2022.
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To view the recorded video and PDF of slides, visit the webinar page.
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I like to oboe introduction music. Is that another Reicha or Danze quintet?
Thank you for the plea to use statistics. It is hard to imagine being able to do reliability work without statistics. Histograms and plots are fine, if you have the data. Reliability statistics deals pretty well with censored data, because we had to. Dare I recommend that ships and returns counts are also statistically sufficient to make nonparametric estimates of field reliability and failure rate functions. Do the best you can with available data, and figure out the marginal cost and value of additional and better data!
Great presentation