Two Examples of a Successful Multivariate Quantitative Analysis in Industry

Abstract The global competition requires and the improved possibilities of data collecting and data analysis enables implementation of so-called continuous improvement strategies . Such a strategy can be divided into two parts, one which identifies room for improvement and a second one which takes care of the improvement. Quantification is of utmost importance because it constitutes generally a necessary condition for improvement. In this paper two examples of quantification for subsequent improvement of two industrial processes are described. The first example deals with the manufacturing process of cast iron pipes and the problem of bending. After quantification an optimization problem is formulated and solved resulting in a considerable reduction of rework. In the second example an effectivity measure for training programs in the software industry is developed by means of which weaknesses in training courses can be identified in order to remove them. The scoring system provides a scale from 0 to 100 for rating a training programme. It turns out that the derived measure coincides with the well-known Mahalanobis distance.