J.D. Williams, 2011 Q&P Chair and JP Morgan Chase
What an exciting year it has been for the Quality and Productivity (Q&P) Section, as we have executed a number of key initiatives for 2011. Here are some highlights:
The 28th Quality and Productivity Research Conference (QPRC) was held in Roanoke, Virginia, and co-hosted by Virginia Tech. Two students were awarded the Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship, as highlighted in the August issue of Amstat News. Congratulations to Tatevik Ambartsoumian of the University of California at Riverside and John Szarka of Virginia Tech. In addition, Blan Godfrey, dean of textiles at North Carolina State University, was the conference honoree and gave the plenary talk. I want to give a special thanks to Geoff Vining of Virginia Tech and his conference committee for putting together a great conference. I also want to thank Jeff Hooper, QPRC steering committee chair, for his leadership in planning the QPRCs many years in advance and for serving the Q&P so well for a quarter century.
The Q&P Section sponsored a student competition this year in which teams from across the country were challenged to employ their statistics and quality improvement skills to improve the process of the Watfactory, a virtual process simulator. Stefan Steiner of the University of Waterloo designed the Watfactory and hosted the competition. Congratulations to the winning team of Long Luo and Yalan Hu of Southern Methodist University and He Yang of Mississippi State University, who received a $500 team prize and $1,000 each for travel expenses to present their process improvement solution at JSM in Miami Beach.
For the first time, the Q&P Section offered travel grants for students to attend JSM. This year, we awarded $400 travel grants to Fadel Megahed of Virginia Tech, Ye Tian of Iowa State, Matthias Tan of Georgia Tech, and Amanda McCracken and Gary Mercado of the University of Alabama. These students were recognized at the joint Q&P/SPES mixer during JSM.
The Joint Q&P/SPES mixer in Miami Beach was a success. The highlight of the evening was, of course, the giving out of door prizes. Thank you to all the donors who provided the fun door prizes and helped to make the annual joint mixer an event to look forward to every year.
The Q&P webinar series is continuing strong this year. We had a successful webinar given in April by Veronica Czitrom, titled “Graphical Analysis of Designed Experiments.” The Q&P webinar coordinator, Ananda Jayawardhana of Pittsburg State University (Kansas), has been working to put our webinars together. Stay tuned for more to come.
Finally, I would like to thank all those who have served the Q&P section this year. Teri Utlaut, program chair, and David Edwards, program chair-elect, did a wonderful job organizing the many speakers and sessions at the Fall Technical Conference (FTC) and JSM. Di Michelson, as the Q&P secretary, and Sharad Prabhu, as the Q&P treasurer, do a lot of work that is not always seen by the general membership, but their efforts are much appreciated. Reid Landes has done a great job as the continuing education chair. Our newsletter, publication, and website officers—Shilpa Gupta, Philip Ramsey, Ben Ahlstrom, and Jason Gillikin—perform a valuable service keeping our members informed of what is happening within the section. Our Council of Sections representative, Sarah Kalicin, helps us receive valuable feedback from and give input to the ASA headquarters. Will Guthrie and his Natrella Scholarship committee have done an excellent job helping select the Natrella Scholarship winners. I also want to thank Fred Faltin, who has served the Q&P for more than two decades in various capacities and who recently finished his term as the Q&P representative to the FTC steering committee.
As we approach 2012, I invite all those willing to serve the section in any capacity to contact Don McCormack at Don.McCormack@jmp.com for possible volunteer opportunities. Let’s have a great 2012!
Call for Papers
2012 Quality and Productivity Research Conference
The 29th Quality and Productivity Conference (QPRC) will be held at the Long Beach, California, campus of California State University (CSU) June 4–7. Visit the conference website for more information.
The goal of QPRC is to stimulate interdisciplinary research among statisticians, scientists, and engineers in 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 also will be invited to submit full papers of their presentations for possible publication in a special issue of the Journal of Quality Engineering.
Please submit title, authors, and a short abstract to Daniel Jeske at daniel.jeske@ucr.edu and indicate your preference for a talk or poster presentation.
The deadline for abstract submission is March 1, 2012.
ASQ STAT: Peter Parker, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, peter.a.parker@nasa.gov
ASQ CPID: Maria Weese, Miami University of Ohio, weeseml@muohio.edu
56th Annual Fall Technical Conference – Statistics and Quality: Expanding the Horizon
We invite you to submit papers for presentation at the 56th Fall Technical Conference to be held October 4–5 in St. Louis, Missouri. The Fall Technical Conference has long been a forum for both statistics and quality and is cosponsored by the American Society for Quality (Chemical and Process Industries Division and the Statistics Division) and the American Statistical Association (Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences and the Section on Quality and Productivity). The goal of this conference is to engage researchers and practitioners in a dialogue 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 (statistics, quality control, or tutorial/case studies), contact any of the committee members listed below. Work should be strongly justified by application to a problem in engineering, manufacturing, process/chemical industry, physical sciences, or a service industry. The mathematical level of the papers may range from basic to that of Journal of Quality Technology or Technometrics. Please note which level of audience is targeted (introductory, intermediate, or advanced) so the committee can pair papers appropriately and plan a balanced program. The program committee welcomes any suggestions for special session topics or speakers.
The abstract submission deadline is February 28, 2012.
ASA Q&P: David Edwards (Chair), Virginia Commonwealth University, dedwards7@vcu.edu
ASA SPES: Robert Wilkinson, The Lubrizol Corporation, Robert.Wilkinson@lubrizol.com
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