Teaching statistical thinking to Engineering students @ Chalmers 2022
Turning data into accurate decision support is one of the challenges being an engineer. One challenge preparing the new engineers for the vast number of problems related to interaction between technology, organisation, and humans, where the normal engineering methods usually using an outside-in perspective of system development that shaped their basic mindset does not always work. Problems such as lack of common understanding if the selected metrics really address the right problem, and how and to whom it should be visualized or if the data collected have the right precision. To quote Yogi Berra: “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice – in practice, it is”.
The purpose with the training provided in this field @ Chalmers, is not only to educate students on the details in the tools themselves, but also on the combined effect of applying the tools and concepts to support an understanding of what is needed to build a continuous improvement culture in an organisation: Visualisation of variation in terms of process stability, common understanding of data quality and a vivid discussion of what to measure to drive the right development. In other words, to increase the understanding of what is needed to develop a system from the inside, which no one really sees from the outside. To give students field experience of these challenges, for many years we have successfully executed continuous improvement projects in cooperation with industry and healthcare where students and practitioners work side-by-side addressing complex development needs using Six Sigma DMAIC methodology (10y, >150 projects and 500 Black Belts).
