Articles
As part of the commitment to improve the ability and understanding of uncertainty management, a collection of articles has been produced and made available on this website. These articles are intended to help increase your understanding of the principles that underlie the probabilistic approach to uncertainty management and to discuss ways in which these methods can be used in practice. You might also be interested in this blog on the same topics.
Robustification
What is robustification and how does it work? This article attempts to demonstrate the workings of the principles that underlie the phenomenon of robustification. After reading this article the reader should not only know what robustification is, but also what enables the phenomenon to exists. The article is most suited to those who have only heard of robustification, but do not feel that they have a full appreciation of what it entails. The principles that underlie robustification are also applicable to parameter design and Design For Six Sigma (DFSS); therefore, this article is also of value to those interested in these topics.
Distribution selection
Creating a model is one thing, but how does one choose what distribution to allocate to a given input variable or parameter? This articles aims to explain a number of phenomena that can be used by the reader to help select the most appropriate distribution. The topics covered in this articles include: entropy, the central limit theorem, basic heuristics for moment calculation and dimensional analysis.
Probabilistic methods and 6s
Do probabilistic methods help with 6s (Six Sigma) or are they two different things? If probabilistic methods can help, what is the best way to combine them with the 6s approach? This articles will assume that the reader has read the article on robustification. it will then go on to briefly cover the history of 6s and explain its goals. With this done, the article will consider how one might go about combining these two tools and explain how each relates to the other. At the end of this article the reader will understand how the probabilistic methods and 6s relate to each other, and how they can use probabilistic methods most effectively to bring about 6s quality.
This articles provides only brief coverage of 6s, and you might want to learn more. If so, try the link below to the Six Sigma Zone.
Surrogate modeling
Because Robustica works in the spreadsheet environment it might not be realized how Robustica can be used it to robustify complex systems that require numerical simulation of experimental investigation. This article introduces the reader to surrogate modeling, which provides an avenue to combine numerical and experimental results with a spreadsheet model for optimization and robustification.
Pobabilistic design
For a comprehensive coverage of probabilistic design you might be interested in the notes located on the URL below. The notes have been written by Associate Professor Dr John Browne. The notes were used in a probabilistic design course that was delivered as part of a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering for some years, and they were well refined in that period.
http://grassmannalgebra.info/probabilisticdesign.
Using these articles
It is desired to make this collection as useful as possible; therefore, if there is any other topic that you would like to see discussed please make contact, and every attempt will be made to produce a pertinent article. Further, if you have written something yourself that you would like to share, then please send an email that either has the article attached or summarizes the article. If suitable, the article will be posted with you cited as the author.
Of course these articles express the thoughts and opinions of the author(s) so please be mindful of this when you apply any of these principles or techniques. It is important that you understand the principle that you apply, and it is hoped that these articles will help improve your understanding of probabilistic methods. Of course CJSteele Uncertainty Management can always help you with the application, so please make contact if you would like to discuss the further assistance that can be offered. That said, it is hoped that you find these articles of value.
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CJSteele Uncertainty Management
Predicting and mitigating the effects of uncertainty on technical and commercial systems
