Continuous Improvement, Probability, and Statistics

Using Creative Hands-On Techniques

William Hooper

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138035072
• eBook ISBN: 9781351979238
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

What happens when the sport of Juggling meets a Statistical Process Control class? This book shows a creative approach to teaching data analysis for continuous improvement. Using step by step instructions, including over 65 photos and 40 graphs, traditional continuous improvement topics (design of experiments, reliability functions, and probability) are demonstrated using card illusions and hands-on activities.

This book is for anyone that teaches these topics and wants to make them more understandable and sometimes even fun. Every operator, technician, student, manager, and leader can learn data analysis and be inspired to join the next generation of continuous improvement professionals.

part one

Simple steps to making probability interesting

chapter one

The science of learning

Make it interesting or shocking*

We all remember the first time we learned how to drive a car: It took maximum concentration to drive around the neighborhood as mom or dad sat in the passenger seat while the brain kept updating: “not too fast; adjust left; woops too far, adjust the other way; Ok give it gas; not that much; oh no, another car is coming at me; concentrate; the intersection is up ahead, slow down; I think I am getting it…” According to Robert Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, there are three concepts that are important for remembering events such as the first significant time at anything. These will be covered later in more detail, but for now think of them as useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking. Do we remember that incident? Most likely it is—highly useful, relevant, and interesting or sometimes called shocking. Bjork’s findings state the greater the total of the three, the deeper the learning, such as having deep grooves in an album or more hard drive utilized. This leads to the statement of “it’s just like driving a car” or “just like riding a bike.” The findings are that we maximize the grooves in the album by the sum total of useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking.

Why we still remember where we were and what we were doing on 9/11

So why do we still remember where we were during 9/11, or, for those old enough to remember, when President John Kennedy was shot?

This does not mean we actively remember everything we learn. It depends again on whether the information is useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking. According to Robert Bjork, most of what we learn is there forever (this is hard to believe). My first phone number—still there. My first home address—still there. My first girlfriend’s first and last name—still there. The first date with my wife—still there. The brain has the ability to hold a million gigabytes or three million TV shows. Unbelievable—but for most of us we really never run out of storage space. The problem is getting it into the grooves. Once it is there, under normal circumstances, it never leaves. Once it is in the grooves, according to Bjork, there are several methods to enhance recall, but if it does not get in the hard drive, recall is difficult, if not impossible.

* A major portion of the chapter was obtained with permission from Carey (2014).

I’ll offer an example from my own life. I used to work at an exclusive country club in high school. I was a huge fan of golfers at the time, as I played often. During one weekday, as I was working in the restaurant, I looked up at one of the tables and there was the legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus. I did nothing more than stare at him while I cleaned the tables—a childhood idol, sitting meters away. There was no meeting, no autograph, not even a glance back from him toward me. How could I still remember it years later?

I remember this incident because it was a combination of useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking. The greater the usefulness, relevancy, and interest, the greater the burn and deeper the grooves. But wait a minute, what about my seventh-grade science teacher who I had for an entire 8 months? Wasn’t that class useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking? Why can’t I remember a thing from that class? Here’s why: Useful?—Ok, Relevant?—Ok, but interesting/shocking?—Not really. Probably the poorest class with a teacher who had little interest in being there. Again, the three concepts:

Useful—Ability to be used for a practical purpose or in several ways

Relevant—Closely connected or appropriate to the matter at hand

Interesting/shocking—Arousing curiosity; holding or catching the attention

Why do we all remember where we were on 9/11, or when John Kennedy was shot? Go back to the three combinations, and it may be explained why. All of those incidences likely scored high on useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking.

So, what was the difference between my Jack Nicklaus experience and an encounter with Bobby Nichols (another pro golfer from back then who was the pro at the club house and I saw daily for a year)? It was interesting/shocking. Go back to the original concept—it is the combination of useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking. The more interesting/shocking the encounter, the more it is burned into memory and the deeper the grooves. I challenge the reader to go back in time and recall an incident from years ago. Rank the three categories on a scale of 1–10 with 10 being the highest. Multiply the three numbers together and come up with an index number from 1 to 1000. This method is used in the concept of Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), and it works here as well. Even with equal weights between the three categories, what happens to the three categories when multiplied together? Quite significant on the impact of learning.

But how does this relate to statistics, data, and continuous improvement? Here is my own personal story on this area. Recall the Pythagorean Theorem from high school math class—very useful in many settings. But let me explain how it was explained to me, and why I can remember it 40 years later. Again, remember Bjork’s concept: the greater the combination of useful, relevant, and interesting/shocking, the greater the storage and likely the greater the retrieval.

In 1972 when I was taking the class in this subject, one of the smarter math instructors had us work through the derivation of the Pythagorean Theorem, following how the theorem was probably developed for the first time. Some of us may remember the formula $A^2+B^2=C^2.$

How relevant was this equation at the time? Let’s put the three categories on a rank scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being totally useless (I would think that some of the calculus classes on integration turned out to be a 1) and 10 being used in everyday life (although some would argue differently, addition of two single digit numbers on a scale of 1–10 is probably a 10 as I may not be able to get change at the grocery store if I did not know that). So for the Pythagorean Theorem, maybe a 6 for relevancy (I needed it to pass the midterm but not much more), a 2 at best for useful, and maybe a 2 for interesting/shocking. The URI index (useful × relevant × interesting or shocking) number of 24 is not going to penetrate the grooves on the storage memory much at all—at least not past the midterm in 2 weeks. Say hello to Ben Weinstein, ninth-grade algebra teacher. Take a look at Figure 1.1 and work through the derivation of the formula.

a. The area of the entire square = sum of all interior parts.

b. C² = the area of t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface: Learning data, statistics, and continuous improvement another way
• Acknowledgments
• Author
• Part I: Simple steps to making probability interesting
• Part II: Introduction: Data, statistics, and continuous improvement via the sport of juggling
• Part III: Introduction: Data, statistics, and continuous improvement via the experimental helicopter
• Part IV: Data, statistics, and continuous improvement for everyone
• Index