This special issue is devoted to celebrate the Quasquicentennial (125th) Birth Anniversary of the Father of Statistical Quality Control – Dr Walter Andrew Shewhart. Dr Walter Andrew Shewhart (Born: 18 March 1891 – Died: 11 March 1967) was a versatile genius as he was a physicist, an engineer and a statistician. Dr Shewhart was born in New Canton, Illinois, USA. His parents were Anton and Esta Barney Shewhart. He graduated from the University of Illinois and then his doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1917.
Dr Shewhart joined the Inspection Engineering Department of the famous Western Electric Company at the Hawthorne Works, in Cicero, Illinois in 1918. In those days, industrial quality monitoring was restricted to inspecting finished products and removing defective items. 16 May 1924 witnessed a great transformation in Statistical Process Monitoring (SPM). George D. Edwards, superior to Dr Shewhart in the Western Electric Company remembered “Dr Shewhart prepared a little memorandum only about a page in length. About a third of that page was given over to a simple diagram which we would all recognize today as a schematic control chart. That diagram, and the short text which preceded and followed it, set forth all of the essential principles and considerations which are involved in what we know today as process quality control”. As we earlier noted in our call for papers for this special issue, “Shewhart’s contributions outlined the significance of reducing the deviations in a manufacturing process”. For further details, readers may see ‘Modern Methods for Quality Control and Improvement’ by Harrison M. Wadsworth, Kenneth S. Stephens (Wiley).
It is worth mentioning that the book Introduction to Statistical Quality Control (Wiley) by Prof. Douglas C. Montgomery (currently Editor-in-Chief of Quality and Reliability Engineering International) has an enriching content on Statistical Process Control and monitoring. A recent book, namely, Introduction to Statistical Process Control (CRC Press) by Prof. Peihua Qiu is also a must read by researchers and practitioners in this domain. The purpose of the special issue is to highlight certain further developments in theory and applications of statistical process monitoring and control. Various also include in depth and extended reviews of existing literature and could be very useful for young researchers. We are privileged to have a lead article for this special issue written jointly by Prof. Montgomery, along with Prof. (late) Connie Borror. This stands as one of the last work of Prof. Borror before her sad and shocking untimely demise.
We are delighted to report that we receive overwhelming response to our call for papers. We thank all the contributors for supporting this special issue. After rejecting a number of submissions, we reviewed a total of 28 submissions excluding the lead article by D.C. Montgomery and C. Borror. Out of these 28 articles, we have selected only 14 papers of significant importance to both practitioners and investigators for publication. These papers contain many new and recent results in Statistical Process Monitoring by researchers from different countries. Most papers also contain interesting ideas for further research. Given the large number of accepted paper, we are dedicating two consecutive issues for celebration of Dr. Shewhart’s quasquicentennial birth anniversary.
We also like to thank Prof. Chien-Wei Wu, current Editor-in-Chief of Quality Technology & Quantitative Management for entrusting us to edit this special issue. We also thank all those who voluntarily reviewed one or more papers for the special issue. The support by City University of Hong Kong to host couple of visits for us to meet has expedited the editorial tasks. Finally, we like to thank Taylor and Francis group for their support in publishing and promoting the special issue.
Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, P.R. China
Amitava Mukherjee
XLRI-Xavier School of Management, India
[email protected], [email protected]