A Note on Nature and Significance of Stochastic Models

Abstract Stochastic modelling has become a scientific catchword in many branches of science and in particular in quality theory. However, there are many misunderstandings concerning the term, and in many cases it is used wrongly. Therefore, this paper aims at introducing stochastic models, their nature and their significance. On any level of society decisions have to be made about actions aiming at controlling future developments. In particular this is true in the realm of quality control and quality assurance. The foundation for a good decision is necessarily a reliable prediction and, therefore, the development of appropriate prediction procedures constitutes the major task in quality control. Any reliable prediction procedure is necessarily based on a stochastic model implying that the development of stochastic models is of fundamental importance not only for the control of quality.