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A Message from Q&P Chair, Don McCormack

1 December 2012 1,201 views No Comment

This was another active year for the Quality and Productivity Section. I’d like to end the year by thanking all the Q&P officers for their hard work. They have made this section one of the most productive, successful, and congenial.

Teri Utlaut will be taking over as chair for 2013. This year, not only did she step in when I needed help, but she started working on Q&P’s contribution to the International Year of Statistics, along with Di Michelson (secretary 2012/chair-elect 2013) and Scott Wise (secretary 2013). Our plan is to reach out to local elementary and secondary schools to teach students about the role of statisticians. If you are interested in contributing, contact Utlaut at theresa.l.utlaut@intel.com.

Program Chair David Edwards was probably the busiest member of the group. Not only was he responsible for organizing this year’s sessions at JSM, but he was the Fall Technical Conference (FTC) chair, as well. The Q&P offerings at both sessions were successful and well attended.

The section was the main sponsor of nine sessions at JSM, where topics included reliability, design of experiments, statistical process control and optimization, and engineering statistics.

The Fall Technical Conference offered four days of invited and contributed sessions, as well as two short courses. The FTC is one of my favorite conferences because of its size and focus. If you’ve never had the opportunity to attend, you should consider the 2013 conference that will be held in San Antonio, Texas.

In May, I was able to attend the Quality and Productivity Research Conference (QPRC), held at Long Beach State. Many thanks go to Dan Jeske of the University of California at Riverside for chairing a great conference. With three concurrent sessions, there was plenty from which to choose. The conference also offered a one-day short course on statistical process control from Di Michelson.

Mohammed Zafar Anis (Bengal Science and Engineering University) and Fadel Mounir Megahed (Virginia Tech) were awarded the Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship at QPRC. Thanks to Will Guthrie for chairing the nomination committee. Additional thanks to Jeff Hooper for his continued support of QPRC.

Webinars See Successful Year

Not all our events required in-person attendance. Ananda Jayawardhana was involved in organizing four successful webinars, jointly given with the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences. In February, “Design of Experiments: New Methods and How to Use Them” was given by Doug Montgomery and Bradley Jones. In June, John Peterson presented “Flexible and Powerful Approaches to Process Optimization Using Bayesian Methods.” “Correlated Component Regression: A New Method for Analyzing Big Data or Small Data Containing Many Correlated Predictors” was presented by Jay Magidson in September, and, in November, Jim Albert offered “Monte Carlo Methods and Bayesian Computation in R.” Look for more webinars next year.

Special Thanks

There were many others who gave their time to make Q&P what it is. Sharad Prabhu spent a good deal of time understanding the intricacies of the treasurer’s position, making sure our dues were accounted for and wisely spent. Michael Joner made sure the section had its voice in Amstat News.

Thanks also go to J.D. Williams (past chair), Rachael Silvestri (Continuing Education chair), Phil Ramsey (senior newsletter editor), Marcus Perry (FTC Steering Committee chair), Sarah Kalicin (Council of Sections representative), Jason Gilliken (webmaster), and Connie Borror (Committee to Nominate Fellows chair).

Good luck to the incoming officers: Di Michelson (chair-elect 2013), Ming Li (program chair-elect 2013), and Martha Gardner (Council of Sections representative). Gardner will also organize QPRC 2013 in June. Thanks everybody for a great 2012. I’m looking forward to a great 2013.

Call for Papers: 30th QPRC

The 30th QPRC will be held June 5–7, 2013, at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, New York, which is in the Capital Region of upstate New York.

The goal of QPRC is to stimulate interdisciplinary research among statisticians, scientists, and engineers in areas of quality and productivity, industrial needs, and the physical and engineering sciences. Statistical issues and research approaches drawn from collaborative research will be highlighted. You are invited to contribute a talk or poster presentation on these themes at the conference. Participants will be invited to submit full papers of their presentations for possible publication in a special issue of Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry.

Submit title, authors, and a short abstract to Martha Gardner at martha.gardner@ge.com and indicate your preference for a talk or poster presentation. The deadline for abstract submission is March 1, 2013.

Call for Papers: 57th FTC

We invite you to submit papers for presentation at the 57th Fall Technical Conference, to be held October 17–18, 2013, in San Antonio, Texas. The theme for 2013 is “Statistics and Quality: Spurring Innovation.”

FTC has long been a forum for both statistics and quality and is co-sponsored by the American Society for Quality (Chemical and Process Industries Division and Statistics Division) and the American Statistical Association (Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences and Section on Quality and Productivity). The goal of this conference is to engage researchers and practitioners in a dialog that leads to more effective use of statistics to improve quality.

If you are interested in presenting an applied or expository paper in any of three parallel sessions (i.e., statistics, quality control, or tutorial/case studies), contact Willis Jensen at wjensen@wlgore.com or Bob Wilkinson at Robert.Wilkinson@lubrizol.com.

Work should be strongly justified by application to a problem in engineering, manufacturing, process/chemical industry, the physical sciences, or a service industry. The mathematical level of the papers may range from introductory to that of the Journal of Quality Technology or Technometrics. Note which level of audience is targeted (i.e., introductory, intermediate, or advanced), so the committee can pair papers appropriately and plan a balanced program.

Members of the program committee welcome any suggestions for special session topics or speakers. The abstract submission deadline is February 28, 2013.

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