Better Decisions, Judgements and Measurements

It is widely realised that progress in science, engineering and business is dependent on decisions being based on data. Good quality data. Thus, it is not surprising that much effort has been devoted to studying differences between measurements when they occur, and members of the statistical profession have contributed to this study.

A recent publication1 has suggested that disagreements between decisions, judgments and measurements are causing widespread concern in other fields, including the legal and the financial services. The authors propose that scrutiny of these concerns might shed light on the bias and/or inconsistency of the decision processes. They advocate the introduction of what they call “Noise Audits”.

This presentation will review the existing procedures widely used in inter-laboratory trials and in measurement systems analysis. It will be suggested that some features of these approaches can be adapted to facilitate the planning and data analysis in noise audits.

References: 1 1. Kahneman, D. Sibony, O. & Sunstein - “Noise”.

Session lead by Roland Caulcutt (Independent Statistical Consultant)
Organised by Shirley Coleman for RSS Quality Improvement Section