与罗布、皮特和教授愉快地共进午餐后，帕蒂回到办公室准备统计学讲座。她仍然很享受这种学术环境，而每周一次的午餐就是其中的一部分。
罗布和教授都是业余的二战历史学家，帕蒂尽量限制他们在午餐时间讨论这个话题。不知怎么的，他们俩让皮特迷上了这个话题。因此，谈论其他事情变得越来越困难。三人商定，如果帕蒂只读一本书，他们就完全不再在午餐时谈论二战。这本书是 一个简单的士兵 作者是约翰-盖斯。这本书讲述的是二战时期德国军队中一名普通士兵的故事。这位名叫塞普的士兵只是被征召入伍，因为他不得不服役。帕蒂不得不承认这本书很吸引人，她很快就发现自己无法放下这本书。有几个晚上，她一直读到凌晨两点！现在，帕蒂在午餐时会滔滔不绝地讲述塞普的冒险经历。书中的细节令她震惊。
As Patty prepared for her class, she noticed that she had received some emails from the students in her class regarding their term project. Each student had to do a term project on some topic in statistics. Patty found at least three of the topics fascinating. One was “Benford’s Law.” This “law” explains why “1” is the leading number about 30% of the time in a wide variety of data sets including electricity bills, death rates, street addresses, populations, etc. Interestingly, it does not depend on what units one uses. The effect relates to the commonness of logarithm’s natural and man-made data sets. The next topic is called “The German Tank Problem.” In this problem, the allies estimated the total number of German tanks in WWII by using serial numbers from parts of the tanks. The estimates ended up being very accurate. The third topic was one that Patty was familiar with, but didn’t know it had a name; Simpson’s Paradox. Some years ago, when she was working for ACME, they were in a yield contest with their main competitor, AJAX. The products in the yield contest were laptops and mobile phones. ACME had better yields in both products, but their overall yield was less than AJAX’s. The reason is easy to see in the table below. AJAX manufactured more of the higher yield mobile phones. Even though their yield was less in both, the overall yield was higher.
图 1.
Although ACME has better yield in both laptops and mobile phones., AJAX’s high number of mobile phones gives them a higher total yield.
大约 20 分钟后，帕蒂准备好了她的课程，还有 15 分钟的空余时间。她查看了自己的电子邮件，里面有一张来自 ACME 首席执行官迈克-麦迪根的便条：
亲爱的科尔曼教授
我们偶尔会在忙不过来的时候去白河电子公司（White River Electronics）分包一些小的装配工作。白河电子公司的老板弗兰克-皮珀担心他的生产工艺会产生过多的焊球。你和皮特能去看看吗？他离你们只有 20 英里。
谢谢、
你忠实的学生
迈克-麦迪根
PS：当你见到他时，你会笑着说出他的名字。
帕蒂教完课后，她找到了皮特。
"嘿，皮特！帕蒂说："看来我们有麦克-麦迪根的任务了。
皮特的表情有点奇怪。他和帕蒂一瞬间都瞪大了眼睛。然后，他们都开始大笑起来。这是帕蒂第一次比皮特更早知道一些潜在的 "演出"！
帕蒂联系了派珀，几天后，她和皮特就来到了白河电子公司（WRE）。
当他们走向 WRE 的前门时，皮特说："我敢打赌，他们是一家'数据和转储'公司。
"帕蒂说："不可能。如果他们是 ACME 的分包商就不可能。我们决不允许这样做"。
"别忘了，我们走后，他们还留着呢。"皮特调侃道。
所谓 "数据和转储 "公司，是指那些尽职尽责地收集流程数据，却对数据不做任何处理的公司；也就是说，这些数据被 "转储 "了。
帕蒂希望这不是真的，但她知道这可能是真的。
当他们走进 WRE 时，笑容可掬、精神亢奋的 Frank Piper 嘴里叼着烟斗迎了上来。入口处弥漫着一股并不难闻的烟味。帕蒂注意到几个 "禁止吸烟 "的牌子赫然醒目。
寒暄过后，弗兰克把他们带到生产线上，向他们介绍了质量技术人员。帕蒂建议她和皮特与技术人员谈谈，了解一下情况。当皮珀离开时，帕蒂惊讶地发现，他们和皮珀在一起时，他一直在抽他的烟斗。随后，帕蒂开始与首席质量技术员珍妮丝-霍普金斯（Janis Hopkins）交谈。
Janis explained how they collect their quality data and showed Patty some of the quality sheets that had today’s defect data noted.
"帕蒂问简尼斯："收集完数据后，你怎么处理？
"我们把它放在这个抽屉里。"珍妮丝回答。
帕蒂看着珍妮丝指着的文件柜。文件柜里的资料井井有条，有好几个月的资料。
“What is done with this defect data after it is filed away?” Patty asked.
"没什么。就放在文件柜里。"珍妮丝回答道。
皮特听后翻了翻白眼，对帕蒂说："我早就告诉过你了。WRE 把他们的数据扔进了文件柜，什么也没做。WRE 是一家 "数据和转储 "公司
“Janis, Mr. Piper, claims WRE’s worst defect is solder balls. How does he know that?” asked Pete.
“Our worst defect is probably tobacco ash from his pipe,” Janis joked. “Seriously, he just seems to have a thing for solder balls, I think shorts are worse,” she finished.
Patty and Pete chatted for a few minutes. They decided to plot some of the recent defect occurrences in a Pareto Chart. The results were as shown below.
图 2.
Pareto Charts list the defect modes in order with the greater number of occurrences first. This feature helps to prioritize which defect modes on which to focus.
“Janis, Peter and I made a Pareto Chart of the defects for the last few weeks. You were right! Shorts are worst; solder balls are almost a non-issue,” Patty said.
Janis 对什么是帕累托图表感到好奇，并对它的实用性和简单性着迷。
“Janis, the Pareto Chart concept is where the “80-20 Rule” comes from. Eighty percent of our defects come from about 20% of our defect modes. You can see that it is approximately true for our data,” Pete elaborated.
帕蒂看着皮特，看得出他对珍妮丝的兴趣比 80-20 规则更大一些。
Patty and Pete went to Piper’s office and explained the Pareto Chart data. Then, they helped him to develop a continuous improvement plan for WRE’s assembly defects. They also got a commitment that the data collected would be used in real-time to keep process yields high and defects in check. As the trio left Piper’s office for lunch, Patty noticed about 10 “No Smoking” signs in his office.
他们吃了一顿愉快的午餐，帕蒂不得不问（尽管她尽量不失礼）："派珀先生，我注意到您的办公室里有很多'禁止吸烟'的标志，您在那里吸烟吗？"帕蒂怯生生地问。
派珀笑着说："我喜欢我的烟斗。如果我看到'禁止吸烟'的牌子，而我又想抽烟，我就把牌子拿下来，留作纪念！"
三人这才回到派珀的办公室，对会议进行总结。
WRE 与其他几家公司同在一栋大楼里办公。从外面到派珀的办公室需要乘坐电梯。在回办公室的路上，他们进入电梯时，派珀正在抽他的烟斗。电梯内醒目地挂着 "禁止吸烟 "的牌子。
A woman in the elevator look indignant and said to Piper, “Sir, don’t you see the ‘No Smoking’ sign?”
"是的，夫人。但是，这个烟斗要么留在我嘴里，要么.............1"
帕蒂和皮特对这种情况大吃一惊，但什么也没说。
在回常春藤大学的路上，皮特说："哇！你见过这么嗜烟的人吗？"
"从来没有！没有什么比这更接近的了。我不得不说，烟斗的烟味很好闻，有一种苹果的香味。但是，我知道二手烟对任何人都不好，"帕蒂回答道。
"嘿，皮特！也许是我想多了，但我觉得你看起来对珍妮丝太感兴趣了。"帕蒂调侃道。
"我是谁？"皮特反唇相讥。
后记
Within one month, defect levels had dropped 70% at WRE, due mostly to using Pareto Charting of data to prioritize defect reduction action plans. WRE was no longer a “data and dump” company. Oh, and Pete and Janis were now an “item.”
1.由于本博客的 "g "级性质，我不能准确引用派博所说的话（只是PG级，但我不想冒犯）。如果您对他说的话感兴趣，请给我发电子邮件：[email protected]，我会告诉您的。和所有帕蒂和教授的故事一样，这个故事也是根据真实事件改编的。
干杯，
罗恩博士
