SICK SIGMA STATISTICS (Part 1)

Most Societies for Quality milk millions of dollars from trusting members, by teaching statistics that
are irrelevant to Quality. Such statistics do not improve members’ processes. 90% of members’
processes are a disaster zone. (Dr Wheeler https://tinyurl.com/mf6eh34y)

Bamboozling companies with traditional statistics is ignorant. Hawkers of the Six Sigma Scam use
totally irrelevant statistics to pad courses, to justify outrageous prices. The self-confessed con man
who created the Scam, charged $70,000 per victim.

TRADITIONAL STATISTICS WARNING

Professor Deming warned about such practices. He said: "Analysis of variance, t- test, confidence
intervals, and other statistical techniques taught in the books, however interesting, are
inappropriate because they bury the information contained in the order of production." "The
student should avoid passages in books that treat confidence intervals and tests of significance, as
such calculations have no application in analytic problems in science and industry."

Dr Gulen says that at GE, “It was sad and funny simultaneously” that the statistics in Six Sigma
courses went way over the heads of 80% of the class. Teaching employees irrelevant statistics, is
ludicrous.

TRADITIONAL STATISTICS USE

Traditional statistics can tell you that last years’ production is probably worse than the year before ...
IF a set of assumptions is satisfied ... and usually they are NOT. Traditional statistics cannot tell you
what is important to quality and what you really need to know. That is, traditional statistics cannot
tell you if you are producing good quality and that you will still be producing good quality next week.

CONTROL CHARTS

There is only one way to tell if you are producing good quality and that you will be producing good
quality into the future. That is, the Process Behavior Chart, (Shewhart, or Control Chart). Control
Charts do NOT depend on the assumptions of traditional statistics.

Control Charts are fundamentally different to traditional statistics. They incorporate time. The
sequence of data from production is key. Traditional statistics ignore time. Traditional statistics
make no distinction whether samples were taken from anywhere in a warehouse or from the end of
a production line.
Most importantly, Control Charts are simple to use by ANY employee, WHEN USED CORRECTLY.
Despite their ease of use, Sick Sigma hacks make a mess of them. As one intelligent but exasperated
young man said to me: “I had to pretend that "control charts require normality" was a 'correct'
answer during the CQE certification exam.“

SUMMARY

Teaching traditional statistics by Quality Associations and other hacks, has made a lot of money for
these hawkers of the Six Sigma Scam. Professor Deming said: “American management have
resorted to crash courses in statistical methods, employing hacks for teachers. The result is that
hundreds of people are learning what is wrong.”

#sixsigma

Dr Gulen points out that at GE, “It was sad and funny simultaneously” that the statistics in Six Sigma
courses went way over the heads of 80% of the class.

Bamboozling the masses with traditional statistics is ignorant and totally unnecessary. Hawkers of
the Six Sigma Scam use totally irrelevant statistics to pad courses, to justify outrageous prices. In
practice, such statistics are not used to improve quality.

Professor Deming warned about such practices. He said:. "Analysis of variance, t- test, confidence
intervals, and other statistical techniques taught in the books, however interesting, are
inappropriate because they bury the information contained in the order of production."

"The student should avoid passages in books that treat confidence intervals and tests of significance,
as such calculations have no application in analytic problems in science and industry"

Perhaps he was predicting the hacks at ASQ hawking the Six Sigma Scam when he said: “American
management have resorted to crash courses in statistical methods, employing hacks for teachers.
The result is that hundreds of people are learning what is wrong.”

"Normal distribution? I never saw one." - Deming

Dr Wheeler: “There are two types of action and most organizations only think of one type of action.
The most common type of action is action taken on the product, to decide if the toast is too burnt to
ship, or if it needs to be scraped first.

The less common type of action is action on the process to quit burning the toast.

Until this difference is expressed people will read the same statement and think of different actions.

People who think we might need reaction limits are typically thinking of the 95% confidence
intervals of traditional statistics. Information theory tells us that with experimental data and a one-
time analysis, two sigma limits provide the best trade-off between the two possible errors of missing
a signal and getting a false alarm. HOWEVER, with a sequential procedure such as a process
behavior chart, information theory tells us that the best trade-off between the two possible errors
will occur with three-sigma limits rather than anything tighter.

We have too many “statisticians” who have too little understanding of the theory behind the
techniques.

“I had to pretend that "control charts require normality" was a

'correct' answer during the CQE certification exam. “ – Dan Marks

When we develop a statistical technique, we begin with the assumption that we have a collection of
independent and identically distributed random variables. This assumption is equivalent to assuming
that the data are homogenous. And this assumption is the secret foundation of statistical
techniques. As long as the data are homogeneous, the statistical techniques work as advertised.

Real data are not generated by probability models. They are generated by operations and processes
which are subject to upsets and changes over time.

the best analysis will always be the simplest analysis that provides the needed insight. When a
process is changing we do not need to estimate process parameters, nor do we need to test
hypotheses. No, we need to know when the process changes occur so we can discover the
assignable causes that prevent us from getting the most out of our process.
https://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/statistics-column/secret-data-analysis-120522.html