Question 12.33

12.33 Control charting your reaction times.

Consider the following personal data-generating experiment. Obtain a stopwatch, a capability that many electronic watches offer. Alternatively, you can use one of many web-based stopwatches easily found with a Google search (make sure to use a site that reports to at least 0.01 second). Attempt to start and stop your stopwatch as close as possible to 5 seconds. Record the result to as many decimal places as your stopwatch shows. Repeat the experiment 50 times. Input your results into a statistical software package.

  1. Construct a histogram of your measurements. How compatible is the histogram with the Normal distribution?
  2. Determine the mean and standard deviation estimates and that will be used in the construction of an chart.
  3. Compute the UCL and LCL of the chart.
  4. Construct the chart for your data series. Discuss the stability of your process. Are you in control? Were there any out-of-control signals? If so, provide an explanation for the unusual observation(s).