American Society for Quality

Review
Author(s): Eric R. Ziegel
Review by: Eric R. Ziegel
Source: Technometrics, Vol. 38, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), p. 89
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of American Statistical Association and American
Society for Quality
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 BOOK REVIEWS 89

Business Survey Methods, edited by B. COX, D. pages of case studies, not from alleviating the problem of the "cursory

treatment."
BINDER, B. CHINNAPPA, A. CHRISTIANSON, M.

COLLEDGE, and P. KOTT, New York: John Wiley, 1995, The authors are not statisticians, and the book suffers the problems, such

xvii + 732 pp. $95.

as lack of cohesion and clarity of expression, generally apparent in that

situation. Pankratz (1992) noted concerning the textbook part, "Chapters

Businesses like Amoco work extensively with surveys these days, both

1-7 appear to be the compilation of notes from a short course" (p. 492).

for internal customers and externally for customers of products and ser-

The new edition does make strides toward improving that situation. It also

vices. A book focused on the use of surveys for business purposes is

adds some significant exclusions from 3E. Chapter 1, "Foundations," adds

certainly needed, so I was eager to examine the content of this book. To

a nice section on causality, though another addition on the design matrix

my disappointment I discovered that the focus is surveys of business in

appears too soon in context. Chapter 2, "Simple Experiment Designs,"

the broader sense of the surveys that collect the data for developing the

adds examples for two-level screening and the identification of system

official statistics in governments for commerce and industry. Examples are

variability. Chapter 3, "Design Types," adds sections on nested designs and

surveys of agricultural production, industry surveys that provide data for

mixtures designs, though the latter recommends using ratio variables to

economic indicators, or surveys of consumer information that result in

avoid the mixture constraint situation. Chapter 4, "Statistical Techniques,"

consumer price indexes.

adds an example of two-factor analysis of variance, though all of its results

As indicated by the long list of editors, this is a compendium of chap-

are done arithmetically. Chapter 5, "Design Evaluation," adds a three-level

ters that have been prepared by different authors. The material actually

three-factor modeling example.

emanates from the International Conference on Establishment Surveys,

Chapter 8, "Case Studies," has been enlarged from 200 to 280 pages with

June 1993, and represents 35 papers chosen from abstracts submitted for

the addition of 7 new case studies to the original 24. The case studies have

the monograph volume, intended as a textbook, that was announced as

no order,.cohesion, or direction, with the new ones merely being appended.

one of the products of the conference. The 35 chapters have been grouped

The primary benefit of the new ones is the broadening of the examples

into six topical areas. There is also an initial overview chapter, "Unique

from the almost exclusive use of Department of Defense applications in

Features of Business Surveys." There are 61 different persons who are

3E. Also new is one appendix, M, 17 pages of DOE "rules of thumb"

authors and coauthors.

in six categories-number of replicates per run, quick test for a shift in

Here is the list of the six topical areas:

the averages, quick test for a shift in the standard deviation, two- and

Frames and Business Registers three-level design choices by number of factors, statistical significance for

Sample Design and Selection the averages model, and statistical significance for the variability model.

Data Collection and Response Quality Note that the author's claim to have "selected the best from competing

Data Processing experimental strategies and then blended them into a more useful and

Weighting and Estimation powerful approach" (Preface, p. iii) is actually the use of standard designs

Past, Present, and Future Directions with modeling for both average response and variability, a "revolution-

ary change ... in how we approach experimentation" (ibid.) that has data

The editors note in the Preface (p. xvii) that the reader is expected to

requirements that are not usually feasible in many industries.

have a "general background" in survey methodology and that in addition

The disk with the book is a student version of the publisher's package,

the second and fifth parts "require knowledge of survey sampling theory

Q-Edge, for design and analysis of experiments. It is not especially current

at the level of Cochran (1977)."

(copyright 1993) and it is never mentioned in the book. The failure to use

The publishing of this volume was a project jointly sponsored by the

any statistical software for design or analysis is a major shortcoming in

Survey Research Methods Section (SRMS) of the American Statistical

this book.

Association and by Statistics Canada. This is a very impressive volume,

If you bought 3E, I still recommend that you upgrade to 4E, because

which has several equally noteworthy predecessors from previous simi-

the book is much improved. Otherwise, the book by Montgomery (1991),

lar efforts of the SRMS. An example is the book by Kasprzyk, Duncan,

the standard reference in 4E for more information, is really a better choice

Kalton, and Singh (1989), which was reported by Ziegel (1990).

for the intended audience and objectives of this book. The publisher has

a companion volume for introductory statistics, the one by Kiemele and

REFERENCES

Schmidt (1993), which was reported by Ziegel (1994).

Cochran, W. G. (1977), Sampling Techniques (3rd ed.), New York: John

Wiley.

REFERENCES

Kasprzyk, D., Duncan, G., Kalton, G., and Singh, M. (1989), Panel Surveys,

Kiemele, M., and Schmidt, S. (1993), Basic Statistics: Tools for Continuous

New York: Wiley Interscience.

Improvement (3rd ed.), Colorado Springs, CO: Air Academy Press.

Ziegel, E. (1990), Review of Panel Surveys, by D. Kasprzyk, G. Duncan,

Montgomery, D. (1991), Design and Analysis of Experiments (3rd ed.),

G. Kalton, and M. Singh, Technometrics, 32, 466-467.

New York: John Wiley.

Pankratz, P. (1992), Review of Understanding Industrial Designed Exper-

iments (3rd ed.), by S. Schmidt and R. Launsby, Technometrics, 34, 492.

Ziegel, E. (1994), Review of Basic Statistics: Tools for Continuous Im-

provement (3rd ed.), by M. Kiemele and S. Schmidt, Technometrics, 36,

Understanding Industrial Designed Experiments (4th

331.

ed.), by S. SCHMIDT and R. LAUNSBY, Colorado

Springs, CO: Air Academy Press, 1994, xii + 756 pp.,

+ disk, $80.

Practical Methods for Design and Analysis of Com-

This is a book that has deliberately been made different from most other

plex Surveys, by R. LEHTONEN and E. PAHKINEN,

design of experiments (DOE) books. The premise is that "academia and

New York: John Wiley, 1995, ix + 337 pp., $55.95.

industry need a book ... that practitioners can understand" (Preface, p.

iii). The authors strive for that goal by providing no more statistical detail
This is another among the first few volumes of this publisher's new

than necessary and by using many examples and a huge set of case studies.
statistics book series Statistics in Practice. Over the past few years, reports

The third edition (3E) was reviewed by Pankratz (1992). He commented,

have been made for several books on sampling, which ultimately led to the

"Much material is covered here but with only a cursory treatment. I found
declaration by Ziegel (1993) that Thompson (1992) had finally provided a

the approach too light for my tastes, but I know of many engineers, to
modern and up-to-date approach to sampling. Relative to the rather broad

whom the book is targeted, who would welcome such a treatment" (p.
coverage of various types of sampling there, this book focuses on more

492). The authors probably were delighted with that comment. The book
traditional types of surveys in official, business, health, and social-science

is now considerably longer, having expanded from 550 to 750 pages, but
applications. It features a breadth in methods for survey analysis, however,

mostly the additions come from new topics, more examples, and 80 more
that does not exist in any other book on survey sampling. In addition, it

TECHNOMETRICS, FEBRUARY 1996, VOL. 38, NO. 1

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