Management Articles

• A useful method for model-building II: Synthesizing response functions from individual components by William G. Hunter
  "There is a vast difference between quality control and quality improvement, passive statistical tools such as Shewhart control charts are useful for quality control, to determine whether the process under surveillance shows any signs of going out of its state of statistical control. On the other hand, more active tools are needed for quality and productivity improvement. In order to improve a process or a product, it is often helpful to use experimental designs in developing a mathematical equation or set of equations to relate the response(s) of interest to important process and environmental variables. Such models can aid in understanding how the relevant processes work so they can be modified in desirable ways. This report contains a practical suggestion that model-builders may find helpful. It involves synthesizing response functions of interest by starting with the simpler task of constructing models for component responses or subsets of them."

• Managing Our Way to Economic Success: Two Untapped Resources by William G. Hunter
  "American organizations could compete much better at home and abroad if they would learn to tap the potential information inherent in all processes and the creativity inherent in all employees."

Management Web Sites and Resources

• Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement by George E. P. Box, William G. Hunter
  Founded in 1985 by George E.P. Box and the William Hunter at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The technical report series is one of the best online management resources with reports authors including: George Box, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Scholtes, Kaoru Ishikawa, William Hunter, Gipsie Ranney and Brian Joiner. Sadly the center has abandoned the ideas of George Box and Bill Hunter. It once was a very important center for thought about management improvement. The legacy left by Box and Hunter has been lost. I find this very sad and a huge insult to the memories of those great men. Bill Hunter was my father and built the Center after he was diagnosed with fatal cancer because it was a useful way to provide benefit to the world. Seeing that cause abandoned I find insulting and extremely unfortunate for all those that no longer have the possibility of benefiting from the vision of Box and Hunter through the center. Thankfully many people that learned from them have continued to build upon their work. And their books, writing and other material continue to inspire those interested in management improvement.

• Life and Legacy of William G. Hunter by John Hunter, William G. Hunter
  George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. Bill also was a leader in the emergence of the management improvement movement. George Box and Bill co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bill Hunter was also the founding chair of the ASQ statistics division.

• Statistics for Experimenters by George E. P. Box, J. Stuart Hunter, John Hunter, William G. Hunter
  Web site for the classic book on design of experiments. Includes a search engine for statistics sites for managers.