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Donald J. Wheeler
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Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos Hardcover – January 1, 2000

by Donald J. Wheeler (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 323 ratings
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UNDERSTANDING VARIATION Second Edition
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  1. Print length
    158 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Spc Pr
  4. Publication date
    January 1, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0945320531
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0945320531
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Spc Pr; 2nd edition (January 1, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 158 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0945320531
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0945320531
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.25 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 323 ratings

About the author

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Donald J. Wheeler

Donald J. Wheeler

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Dr. Donald J. Wheeler has been actively planting the seeds of transformation in companies and organizations around the world for over 25 years. His classes have been credited with being the essential element in turning companies around and taking them from red ink to black. In less spectacular ways his seminars have been the foundation for establishing learning cultures within many organizations in various industries. Unlike so many classes where the emphasis is upon techniques, Dr. Wheeler's classes go far beyond mere techniques to teaching the way of thinking needed to use those techniques effectively. He has worked with over 250 companies in chemical processing, health care, medical equipment, information technology, steel and aluminum production, agribusiness, food production and processing, electronics, pulp and paper processing, automotive suppliers, government agencies, and banking. Dr. Wheeler has taught over 1000 seminars in the USA, Canada, Mexico, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Portugal, South Africa, Brazil and Malaysia. Over 60,000 students from the US and 32 countries on five continents have attended his seminars, which are held in Knoxville, Tennessee. Marketing research shows that word of mouth advertising brings in the majority of these students. We love it when our clients and students tell their friends and colleagues how good Dr. Wheeler's classes are! Along with his acclaimed seminars, Dr. Wheeler has also authored or coauthored twenty books which collectively form the definitive library for Discovery through Data Analysis. His books are being used throughout the US and in over 41 countries around the world. Dr. Wheeler has M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Statistics from Southern Methodist University. He taught at the University of Tennessee for 12 years where he was an Associate Professor of Statistics. He is a Fellow both the American Statistical Association and the American Society for Quality, and he was an associate of Dr. W. Edwards Deming until his death in 1993. In short, Dr. Wheeler is the internationally recognized expert on Data Analysis and SPC. He has the knowledge, the experience, and the ability to communicate that knowledge and experience to others.

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Top reviews from the United States

William C. Zeeb
5.0 out of 5 stars You cannot imagine how valuable this book can be; nearly 100 graphs and tables packed into 124 fun to read pages!
Reviewed in the United States on November 10, 2013
Verified Purchase
Don Wheeler, former colleague of W. Edwards Deming, explains how VERY SIMPLE statistics can transform any business process.

As a young boy in Tennessee, I sometimes uncovered "white lightning" (moonshine whiskey) hidden in forests. MIght his East Tennessee roots give Wheeler his rare sense of humor and fascination with how data and KPI's can be used to "cheat?"

This book is very rich in actual examples of data being used to mislead as well as KPI's which actually promote THE OPPOSITE behavior intended.

Wheeler takes the reader through multiple "cycles of learning" in this short read which is easily completed in under 2 hours on a flight. But be warned; once you read this book you will want to reread it and apply the lessons many times.

Are your processes "predictable" or are they "unpredictable?" With his jargon free, reader friendly style, Wheeler explains clearly 3 kinds of "Voice of the Customer" specifications, as well as sharing multiple examples and pitfalls which leaders make converting data into knowledge.

If you suffer from "rare" but important defects, be sure to read the next to last chapter. Brilliant!

The cases on pages 86 and 131 will inspire you to gain new insights building on the easily understandable histograms.

A must read for any Lean Six Sigma Executive, Sponsor or Belt. I buy this book in boxes of 10; I often find my colleagues and contacts asking to have my copy!
4 people found this helpful
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Lean Coach
5.0 out of 5 stars As advertised
Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024
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Exactly the condition advertised. Quick shipping.
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Keith Sparkjoy
5.0 out of 5 stars I know kung fu
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2014
Verified Purchase
After reading this book (only took a couple of evenings) I feel like Keanu Reaves in The Matrix.

I've been studying Dr. Deming's system of profound knowledge, and the bit about understanding variation has been on my TODO list. This book nailed it with a crystal clear introduction to Statistical Process Control (SPC), which Dr. Deming promoted based on his learnings from statistician Walter Shewhart when they worked together at Bell Labs. As Dr. Deming pointed out, an eighth-grader could do this; it's not supposed to be hard, so take the negative reviews of this book with a grain of salt. If you already understand and use SPC, you won't gain nearly as much from this book as a newbie like myself.

I remember reading Deming's Out of the Crisis and thinking that the terminology around SPC could easily be confused. "Control" is a very loaded term. Dr. Wheeler has come up with a new terminology, replacing "Control" with "Predictability", among other things. This is going to make it much easier for me to talk about without creating misconceptions.

Thanks Dr. Wheeler for making this topic so approachable and for framing it in such a compelling way, and for not being afraid to promote an entirely new terminology even when your book publishing company is known as "SPC Publishing". This reinforces your own personal belief in continual improvement.
4 people found this helpful
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R.Sudhagar Raghavan
4.0 out of 5 stars Classic and an essential reading
Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2016
Verified Purchase
This is a classic among the Lean Six Sigma and process improvement professionals and rightly so. I am impressed with the simple and clear explanation of some very important fundamentals behind understanding variation. Wheeler provides some excellent examples to illustrate these principles.

My only complaint is that some non-manufacturing examples given are rather misleading. There are differences in the nature of manufacturing and transactional processes. It would have been better if Wheeler had restricted the examples to manufacturing.
One person found this helpful
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Scott Ward
5.0 out of 5 stars Confused When Others Talk About Data?
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
I wish economists and journalists and other leaders would read books like Understanding Variation by Donald Wheeler. Today the news is that unemployment claims went up, for the first time in 3 weeks. Analysts are now speculating that maybe the recovery is not as strong as it appears.

Excuse me. What are you saying? Are you saying that one upward blip can be extrapolated into a trend? Are you saying that because we flipped a coin 3 times and got heads (unemployment going down), and now we got a tail (unemployment going up) that our coin is defective? Are you saying that because temperatures were warmer than usual last week that we won't have winter?

One data point does not make a trend. We can't say the recovery is soft unless we know what the normal variation is on the out-of-work claims from week to week. Any result from week to week is going to be up or down (like heads or tails). Just because it goes up doesn't mean that a trend has reversed, when we didn't have a significant trend in the first place. 3 weeks of claims going down, analogous to coin flipping, could happen 1 in 8 times. The chance of it going down a fourth time is 1 in 16, unless there's a change in the system that creates unemployment claims (or better, creates jobs). Until we get to the odds of 1 in 64 (6 weeks in a row in the same direction--or some say, 1 in 256 is less risky for identifying a false trend) we can't say that we had an unemployment trend at all.

Please, Mr/Ms Economist and Mr/Ms Journalist, don't get confused and become Chicken Little thinking the economic sky is falling based on one piece of data that was going to show up normally. Read Wheeler's book to better understand all this.
3 people found this helpful
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Jeannette E. Rogers
5.0 out of 5 stars This book changed my leadership ability
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2023
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Great book - want all my staff to
Read this!
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Fatemah Alshaikh
3.0 out of 5 stars I expected to receive the book in it’s original form
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
The book cover is torned in some areas and has writings inside
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Fatemah Alshaikh
3.0 out of 5 stars I expected to receive the book in it’s original form
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2023
The book cover is torned in some areas and has writings inside
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guy
4.0 out of 5 stars Livre reçu
Reviewed in France on December 26, 2021
Verified Purchase
Après un petit souci que PIEULER a corrigé, le livre est arrivé à bon port dans l’état annoncé. Merci.
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george
4.0 out of 5 stars item arrived in a very good condition
Reviewed in Germany on April 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
as expected a used hardcover book in very good condition
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Rohit Pathak
5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for top management.
Reviewed in India on April 10, 2019
Verified Purchase
A must read for all professionals at all levels in the company. Specially for top management...
One person found this helpful
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jesus sanchez
5.0 out of 5 stars analisis de datos
Reviewed in Spain on April 2, 2018
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Una forma de explicar y entender el analisis de datos de forma diferente a como lo hacen la mayoria de libros.
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Mr. Ross Maynard
5.0 out of 5 stars A Straightforward Guide to Understanding Business Data and Process Charts
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 9, 2011
Verified Purchase
Many management reports compare the current period with this time last year, or with a budget or target figure. Such single-point comparisons, however, ignore the fact of natural variation in all processes and, therefore, can tell us very little.

The answer is to present data as a time series with control limits that define the natural (expected) variation in the current process. These are called Process Behaviour Charts and are the subject of this book.

Donald Wheeler has written many texts and articles on business data, including the standard texts on statistical process control. "Understanding Variation", however, is an easy to read and accessible guide to process behaviour charts for managers. The book is full of worked examples and is a very straightforward, yet enlightening, read.

"Understanding Variation" explores the topic more fully than Brian Joiner's "Fourth Generation Management". Both are recommended, but if you work with business data then I highly recommend this book. Accountants too should read this when considering the form they present management data in.
3 people found this helpful
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