Statistical Methods in Quality Management 5
current characteristics of a process, or make inferences about whether a process is in
control, or predict future values of instrument readings in order to determine whether it is
properly calibrated.
8. Methods of sample selection, or sampling schemes, include: simple random sampling,
stratified sampling, systematic sampling and cluster sampling. Simple random sampling
is useful where one needs to gather information from a moderately large, homogeneous
population of items. For example, if a MBA director wished to find out the attitudes of
300 MBA students toward various policies, procedures, and services provided to the
students, s(he) might use a simple random sample to determine whom the survey should
be sent to. An automobile insurance company could use a stratified sample to determine
accident rates of customers, stratified according to their ages. An auditor might use a
systematic sampling to sample accounts receivable records by choosing every 50th record
out of a file cabinet. Cluster sampling could be used by management analysts within city
government to determine satisfaction levels of residents on a neighborhood by
neighborhood (cluster) basis. Judgment sampling should be avoided, except as a way to
gather preliminary, impressionistic data before beginning a true sampling study.
9. Any sampling procedure can result in two types of errors: sampling error and systematic
error. Sampling error occurs naturally and results from the fact that a sample may not
always be representative of the population, no matter how carefully it is selected. The
only way to reduce sampling error is to take a larger sample from the population.
Systematic errors, however, usually result from poor sample design and can be reduced
or eliminated by careful planning of the sampling study.
Systematic errors in sampling can come from bias, non-comparable data, uncritical
projection of trends, causation, and improper sampling. They may be avoided by
approaches discussed in the chapter. Basically, careful planning of the sampling study,
awareness of possible systematic error causes, and careful execution of the study can help
to avoid most of the common errors listed above.
10. A population is a complete set or collection of objects of interest. A sample is a subset of
objects taken from a population.
11. Measures of location are essentially those that focus on “central tendency,” such as the
mean, median, and mode. The mean is the average, the median is the point above and
below which 50 percent of the values of a sample or population fall, and the mode is the
most commonly occurring value.
12. Measures of dispersion are used to indicate the degree of “scatter” of data. They include
the range, variance, and standard deviation. The latter two statistics measure scatter
around the mean of the sample or population.
13. The proportion, usually denoted as p, is used to measure the fraction of data that have a
certain characteristic. For example, the fraction of respondents that is female or male.