Stefan Steiner

Biography

Dr. Stefan Steiner is a Professor in the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, Canada.

Research Interest

Professor Steiner's research interests cover the broad area of business and industrial statistics focusing on process improvement. The overall goal of his research is the development of innovative ways to use process data and statistical methods to drive process improvement and variation reduction. One major recent project was the development of an algorithm for variation reduction called the Statistical Engineering algorithm. This step-by-step algorithm was designed to help practitioners solve chronic problems in existing high- to medium-volume manufacturing and assembly processes. The algorithm has some unique features, including focus on a dominant cause, explicit use of the baseline data to help plan further investigations, a new measurement system assessment plan, explicit consideration of the seven variation reduction approaches, use of the method of elimination to search for a dominant cause, and an emphasis on observational studies rather than experimental studies.