Potentially Capable but not Actual

Many senrice courses in statistics, in my experience, have degenerated into the presentation of a set of recipes. The prevailing situation extant in many courses was summed up recently by my son, himself a trainee engineer, when he said, "I lean the recipes to pass the exam but I don't really understand the material". In fact the rapidity with which the material in his course has been presented would defy understanding by the most statistically astute. Ironically, if past form is anything to go by, he'll do exceptionally well! With many manufacturing organisations pursuing quality improvement programmes, I've had numerous opportunities over recent years to teach practicing engineers the intricacies of statistical process control. This has often been done in their workplace using material that is directly relevant to them and their work environment. Generally, I have been surprised by how little they understood about the true nature of statistics and the potential benefits that a statistical approach could offer them. I appreciate that practicing engineers who may not have graduated in recent years or who have reached their current positions by working up from the shop-floor, will have had little or no formal statistical training. All recent engineering graduates, however, will almost certainly have endured some compulsory statistics course as part of their training. The disarming fact, however, is that neither by virtue of previous training nor through interaction with those who have been so trained have they come to see the benefits or relevance of statistical techniques. One must, therefore, reasonably ask what has gone wrong? Is the fault with them, with the courses they have pursued, a combination of both, or something else altogether? With the current surge of interest in statistical techniques engendered by the "quality" push, many design, maintenance and process engineers are W i g forced to embrace ideas that many have met before but haven't mastered.