Statistical process control

Abstract

The statistical control of their manufacturing processes has been the key to Japan’s dominance of world markets.

This quotation represents a commonly held viewpoint during the 1970s and 1980s in Western countries who began to import manufactured goods from Japan which were seen to be better quality and to be more reliable. Certainly Japan adopted the application of statistical methods to the management of quality rather more vigorously and rather earlier than the West, but the really key issue was in making the connection between the quality of the product or service and the variability inherent in the process responsible. It is ironic that many of the statistical techniques were pioneered in the West, and in particular in the telecommunications industry in the USA, where statisticians such as Edwards Deming and Walter Shewhart began to promote the benefits of applying statistical controls to manufacturing processes.