Robert Wilkinson, The Lubrizol Corporation

The 57th Fall Technical Conference (FTC), co-sponsored by the ASA and American Society for Quality (ASQ), was held October 17–18 in San Antonio, Texas. The conference was well attended despite the government shutdown.

Sessions covered a wide range of topics in statistics and quality. These included invited sessions from the sponsoring groups (i.e., sessions on Big Data (ASA-Q&P), experimental planning (ASQ-STAT), and project properties of non-confounding designs (ASQ-CPID)), along with a panel discussion on the state of applied industrial statistics (ASA-SPES). There was a session honoring Stu Hunter’s many contributions to quality engineering and a lunchtime tribute to George Box. Also noteworthy were invited sessions from Technometrics, Quality Engineering, and the Journal of Quality Technology; many contributed sessions on DOE, quality, and reliability; and a lunchtime presentation by 2013 ASA President Marie Davidian.

On the day preceding the conference, four short courses were offered that spanned a range of topics, including DOE, text mining, and reliability. Equally as valuable were the many opportunities to interact with colleagues from the statistics and quality areas. The River Walk provided an excellent setting for those discussions.

The section also is accepting papers for the 2014 Fall Technical Conference, to be held October 2–3 in Richmond, Virginia. The abstract submission deadline is February 26, 2014. Contact Flor Castillo (fcastillo@americas.sabic.com) for details and further information.