I travel too much. Invariably, though, it enriches me. I typically return with some unusual experience or a new story with which to regale my colleagues. One day, while sitting in another aluminum tube with wings, I struck up a conversation with the person next to me, an engaging, interesting woman who made me laugh. I enjoyed her company and asked her name. She smiled and replied, “Lawrence.” Looking at her, I paused just long enough that she must have sensed the wheels turning in my head. “My dad wanted a boy,” she offered. “My friends call me ‘Larry.’”

I’m not sure about you, but until I boarded that aircraft, I had never met a woman named “Larry.” It was oh-so-different, unique, and incongruous.

Likewise, until recently, I considered statistical process control (SPC) and acceptance sampling to be different from one another. Their differences seemed to indicate that they were from different worlds, with different methodologies and objectives.

While those differences are clear, recent experience has shown me that these are actually complementary statistical tools. Although very different, SPC and acceptance sampling procedures can be used in concert with one another as a formidable quality improvement tool.

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