QUALITY AND RELIABILITY ENGINEERING INTERNATIONAL

Qual. Reliab. Engng. Int.2000;16: 79–80

EDITORIAL

A MEETING FOR INDUSTRIAL STATISTICIANS—THE 44TH FALL TECHNICALCONFERENCE

While I have spent most of my professionalcareer as an engineering professor, I considermyself an industrial statistician. I also participatein several organizations that represent the interestsof industrial statisticians, including the AmericanStatistical Association, the Royal Statistical Society,the American Society for Quality, INFORMS, and theInstitute of Industrial Engineers. However, every timeI look for a conference where I can meet, talk andgenerally network with people whose main, drivinginterest is industrial statistics I go to the Fall TechnicalConference, or as it’s known to us hard-core types,the FTC. I’ve been attending the FTC for about 20years, and consistently, year in and year out, this isthe best professional meeting I attend. What continuesto surprise me is the number of industrial statisticiansI encounter that don’t know about it.

The FTC has been going a long time. No less anotable industrial statistician than Professor J. StuartHunter was a principal in organizing the first FTC, 43years ago. Today, the FTC is co-sponsored by threeorganizations; the Chemical and Process IndustriesDivision, the Statistics Division of the AmericanSociety for Quality, and the Section on Engineeringand Physical Sciences of the American StatisticalAssociation. There are always three parallel tracks,Statistics, Quality Control, and Case Studies. Aninitial plenary session starts the conference, and thehigh point, at least for me, is always the W. J. YoudenMemorial Address. One of today’s leading industrialstatisticians is always invited to give the YoudenAddress.

Most of us remember Youden squares from ourbasic experimental design course as a symmetric bal-anced incomplete block design with the characteristicof controlling two nuisance sources of variation, likethe Latin square, but without the constraint of the‘square’ arrangement. These designs were of consid-erable value in World War II for scientific and engi-neering research on subjects such as cylinder positionsin aircraft engines. Jack Youden’s work in designed

experiments and other areas such as measurementerror in making comparisons and diagnostic tests hashad immense impact on the scientific and engineeringcommunity. This year is the anniversary of the 100thbirthday of both Jack Youden and W. E. Deming, trulytwo of the most notable industrial statisticians of the20th century. Both of these events will be celebratedat this year’s FTC.

This year the FTC is in Minneapolis, MN onThursday and Friday, 12 and 13 October. Theconference theme is ‘Statistical Thinking, StatisticalMethods, and Statistical Standards: Decision-Makingin the New Millennium’. In addition to the regulartechnical presentations, there are also some specialsessions. TheJournal of Quality TechnologyandTechnometricssessions highlight one or more paperseach that will be published in upcoming issues of thejournals. These paper presentations usually includediscussants and a lot of interaction with the attendees.The William G. Hunter Award from the StatisticsDivision, The Youden and Wilcoxon Prizes (forpapers inTechnometrics), and the Shewell Award forthe best presentation at the previous FTC are alsopresented. Even the luncheon addresses are usuallyinteresting.

In addition to the main conference, there is alsoa day of pre-conference short courses on Wednesday11 October and a day of post-conference shortcourses on Saturday 14 October. The short coursetopics are: (1) Reliability Analysis, (2) The Basicsof Designed Experiments, (3) Multivariate StatisticsProcess Control, and (4) Six-sigma in the Chemicaland process Industries. You can get all the details atthe FTC website: www.amstat.org/sections/spes/.

You may wonder why I’m taking valuable editorialspace to write about this conference. Part of theanswer is that in my view, the modern industrialstatistician really doesn’t have a ‘home’; that is, aplace where technical idea exchanges over importantissues, networking, and continuing education canoccur in an effective manner. Now our current

Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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professional societies are in many respects truly greatorganizations, but they are broad-based. The membersof the professional societies to which I belong haveinterests ranging across the spectrum from agriculturalto biostatistics to scheduling theory to nonlinearprogramming. And these people essentially dominatethe societies. Industrial statisticians are only a smallpercentage of the memberships. As Stu Hunter soeloquently puts it, we’re Balkanized.

The FTC is the only regular conference focusedexclusively on the interests and concerns of industrialstatisticians. Just think about it. A chance to spendtwo days totally surrounded, indeedimmersed, witha group of people who share your interests, who areexcited about the kinds of problems and challengesthat excite you, and are also just downright enjoyable.

DOUGLAS MONTGOMERY

Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Qual. Reliab. Engng. Int.2000;16: 79–80