Page 10 - Applied statistics and probability for engineers

Preface

INTENDED AUDIENCE
This is an introductory textbook for a irst course in applied statistics and probability for
undergraduate students in engineering and the physical or chemical sciences. These indi-
viduals play a signiicant role in designing and developing new products and manufacturing
systems and processes, and they also improve existing systems. Statistical methods are an
important tool in these activities because they provide the engineer with both descriptive
and analytical methods for dealing with the variability in observed data. Although many of
the methods we present are fundamental to statistical analysis in other disciplines, such as
business and management, the life sciences, and the social sciences, we have elected to focus
on an engineering-oriented audience. We believe that this approach will best serve students
in engineering and the chemical/physical sciences and will allow them to concentrate on the
many applications of statistics in these disciplines. We have worked hard to ensure that our
examples and exercises are engineering- and science-based, and in almost all cases we have
used examples of real data—either taken from a published source or based on our consulting
experiences.
We believe that engineers in all disciplines should take at least one course in statistics.
Unfortunately, because of other requirements, most engineers will only take one statistics
course. This book can be used for a single course, although we have provided enough material
for two courses in the hope that more students will see the important applications of statistics
in their everyday work and elect a second course. We believe that this book will also serve as
a useful reference.
We have retained the relatively modest mathematical level of the irst ive editions. We have
found that engineering students who have completed one or two semesters of calculus and
have some knowledge of matrix algebra should have no dificulty reading all of the text. It is
our intent to give the reader an understanding of the methodology and how to apply it, not the
mathematical theory. We have made many enhancements in this edition, including reorganiz-
ing and rewriting major portions of the book and adding a number of new exercises.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK
Perhaps the most common criticism of engineering statistics texts is that they are too long.
Both instructors and students complain that it is impossible to cover all of the topics in the
book in one or even two terms. For authors, this is a serious issue because there is great variety
in both the content and level of these courses, and the decisions about what material to delete
without limiting the value of the text are not easy. Decisions about which topics to include in
this edition were made based on a survey of instructors.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the ield of statistics and how engineers use statistical meth-
odology as part of the engineering problem-solving process. This chapter also introduces the
reader to some engineering applications of statistics, including building empirical models,
designing engineering experiments, and monitoring manufacturing processes. These topics
are discussed in more depth in subsequent chapters.