I have evolved to using fewer, simpler tools in my consulting and have never been more effective, as I commented upon in my last column. It made me ponder the relevance of much of what I learned in my master’s statistics program. Thinking of the most basic concepts, I decided to look up what the American Society for Quality considers the (Six Sigma) Green Belt body of knowledge. If you click on its link, I want to draw your particular attention to: “III. Six Sigma—Measure (B, C, D),” “IV. Six Sigma—Analyze (A. B),” and “V. Six Sigma—Improve & Control (A, B).”

In the foreword to Quality Improvement Through Planned Experimentation, by Ronald Moen, Thomas Nolan, and Lloyd Provost (McGraw-Hill, 2012)—which I believe is the best book on industrial design of experiments—Deming himself writes:

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