Lectures & 

conference presentations

2023: A Meander through a 30 year career in Statistical Engineering - an online talk given  to the International  Statistical Engineering Association. It can be viewed on You Tube here.

2022: A retrospective and an appreciation of Jim Morrison’s 1957 paper “The study of variability in engineering design” to the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Statistical Association, at the University of Michigan, October  25, 2022. A YouTube video of the talk is here. This was an updated version of the talk I gave December 9, 2021 to the West Midlands Local Group of the Royal Statistical Society (see below)
2022: "Statistical Science - a brief introduction" a talk prepared for GCSE Maths and statistics pupils, at the request of NineStiles Academy in Birmingham UK. February 15, 2022. I would be happy to deliver this talk to other schools that might be interested, please get in touch, 

2021: "Variability in Engineering Design"  - an appreciation and retrospective of Jim Morrison's 1957 paper. Talk to the West Midlands Local Group of the Royal Statistical Society, December 9, 2021, in belated (due to Covid) celebration of the group's 75th anniversary

2018: "Using Statistical Science to improve engineering design", a talk at the Professional Affairs Committee of the Royal Statistical Society, London, December 7, 2018

2017:  "A statistical career in industry" to the PhD students on the STOR-i program at the University of Lancaster (Oct 26, 2017)  & an updated presentation of  "Dimensional Analysis & its applications in statistics" to students and faculty at  STOR-i (Oct 27, 2017)

2016: Failure Mode Avoidance in New Product (& Process) Development at the British Deming Association, Coventry UK, February 1, 2016. Download the slides here.

2015: Dimensional Analysis and its application in statistics at the 59th ASQ Annual Fall Technical conference Houston TX, October 9 2015. Download the slides here

2014: Some Engineering Problems that Tony has helped me to solve - at the retirement seminar in honour of my PhD supervisor & friend Professor Tony Lawrance, University of Warwick, March 25, 2014

2013: Dimensional Analysis in Statistical Engineering  as part of the Randy Sitter Technometrics session at the 20th ASA/IMS Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry and Technology at UCLA, Los Angeles CA; June 20-23, 2013 on the subject of Experimental Design for Engineering Dimensional Analysis. Details here. See also a video of my talk to the Isaac Newton Institute in 2011. 

2012: Dr. Genichi Taguchi (1924-2012) - an appreciation. A short valedictory address at the Sheraton Novi Detroit Hotel, MI celebrating the life of Dr. Taguchi; November 29, 2012.

2012: Creative Convergence in Integrated System Design. A lecture given to the 2012 PhD class in the Department of Engineering at Cambridge University, February 27, 2012.

2011: Dimensional Analysis in Experimental Design - at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences Industry day, November 30 2011.

2011: Statistical Topics in Engineering and Manufacturing Industry. A 2-day course at for the Royal Statistical Society Professional Development Centre, November 2-3. This course was co-written and delivered with Huw Williams.

2011: A Quality Operating System for Tier 1 Automotive Suppliers - at the Welsh Automotive Forum, Waterton Technology Centre, Bridgend, October 20, 2011.

2011: Creative Convergence - banquet speech at the Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry & Technology, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, June 23, 2011.

2011: Parameter Design & Transfer Functions - at the Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry & Technology, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA, June 23, 2011.

2010: Statistical Engineering - a plenary lecture given at the International Conference of the Royal Statistical Society, Brighton Centre, UK, Sept 15, 2010. You can download a copy of the slides here. Repeated at the at the 47th Gregynog Statistical Conference, The University of Wales, Gregynog, Powys, April 16, 2011; to the Institute of Physics, May 19, 2011; and at Leeds University, March 7, 2012.

2009: The rites and prangs of statistical fashions in industry - a lecture given jointly with my friend, Tony Greenfield, at the University of Newcastle, December 10, 2009, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Industrial Statistics Research Unit. You can listen to the lecture and follow the slide show presentation here.

2009: FMEA - Failure Mode and Effect Avoidance; at the University of Bradford, UK, July 1, 2009.

2008: Reliability through Failure Mode Avoidance; at Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM, USA, March 5, 2008. See also this follow-up report from Sandia Labs., presented at the 2008 European Wind Energy Conference.

2007: Failure Mode Avoidance, a 1-day course at the University of Bradford, UK, March 15, 2007 (details).

2006: Failure Mode Avoidance at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, November 10, 2006.

2006: Failure Mode Avoidance at the conference “Excellence in the Product Development Process – Robust Design Methodology”, Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden (details). A longer version of this lecture was given as part of a 2-day course at the university, on Failure Mode Avoidance, November 22-23, 2006.2005: Failure Mode Avoidance, Keynote Address at the 27th International Conference on Software Engineering, May 15th, St. Louis Missouri, USA. My talk was part of the A-MOST testing workshop (report).

2004: Engineering for reliability from the perspective of automotive engineering, at the Workshop on Testing for Dynamic Acquisition of Defense Systems, December 13-14, 2004 National Academy of Sciences, Building 2100 C Street, NW Washington, DC. I was the only non-US scientist to be invited (by Vijay Nair) to participate in the workshop. Many of my suggestions for failure mode avoidance were included in the text and recommendations of the report (e.g. see Recommendation #2).

2004: Science, engineering, and statistics, at the 4th International Conference of the European Network for Business and Industrial Statistics, Copenhagen, Denmark, September 22, 2004 (keynote address). This lecture was repeated at the University of Detroit Mercy, October 18th 2004, and at the 4th International Symposium on Business and Industrial Statistics, in Palm Cove, Cairns, Australia, April 15, 2005 (Photo). An earlier version of ths lecture was given at the University of Bradford, UK, on April 29, 2004 (report)

2004: Reliability, at a meeting on A National Strategy for Reliability, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, London, September 15, 2004. It was for this lecture that I was awarded the Donald Julius Groen prize of the IMechE by the Safety & Reliability Group.

2004: Measuring robustness as a parameter in a transfer function. SAE World Congress, Detroit, MI, USA, March 12, 2004.

2003: On aspects of statistical engineering, a seminar delivered in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA, March 21, 2003. An updated version of this seminar was delivered to the School of Engineering, Design and Technology at the University of Bradford, UK on May 15, 2003 (press release); to the Business and Industrial Section of the Royal Statistical Society on June 4, 2003; to the Faculty of Engineering, University of Birmingham, UK, on October 16, 2003; and to the Statistical Sciences Research Institute at the University of Southampton on December 5, 2003.

2002: The role of statistical science in automotive engineering, at the Ninth ASA/IMS Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry and Technology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA, May 21, 2002. (Photo: Sir David Cox, FRS; Professor Vijay Nair; Dr. Tim Davis; at the conference). An updated version of this talk was presented at the University of Oxford, April 1, 2003.

2000: Robust or Bust - Robust Engineering Design in the Automotive Business, at the 18th ASI Annual Taguchi Methods Symposium, Novi, Michigan, USA. November 1, 2000. (Photo: Dr. Genichi Taguchi and me, early in my career).

1999: Reliability Improvement in Automotive Engineering at the Sixth ASA/IMS Spring Research Conference on Statistics in Industry and Technology, Minneapolis, MN, USA. June 2-4, 1999. (A modified version of this talk was delivered on my behalf by Robert Webb at the I.Mech.E. conference The Global Vehicle - reliability of automotive systems and components, Birmingham, UK, December 12, 2000.)

1999: Engineering for Corporate Success in the New Millennium - a lecture co-written with Gavin Green and delivered by Richard Parry-Jones at the Royal Society, for the Royal Academy of Engineering, London, May 10, 1999. and subsequently at NorthWestern University, IL, USA, on May 17, 2001.

1997: Engine Mapping: a two stage approach, at the Universität Augsburg, Germany.

1995: Engineering with Statistics at a meeting at the headquarters of the IMechE, London, to promote closer links between the engineering and statistical professions. (repeated in 1997, under the title Robustness Thinking and Robust Engineering Design).

1994: Reliability and Robustness Engineering: a technical overview at a Ford 2000 Conference on the Integration of Quality Methods, Dearborn, MI., USA.

1993: Teaching Statistics to Engineers at a meeting of the Business and Industrial Section, Royal Statistical Society, London, UK.

1993: Will Computer Modelling Replace Testing?, a presentation to the Engineering Integrity Society, UK.

1992: Statistical Methods in Quality Improvement at the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at the University of Southampton, UK.

1992: Engineering, Quality and Experimental Design, a 2-day course presented to the international conference of the Royal Statistical Society, Sheffield, UK.

1991: Statistical Methods in Quality Engineering, at a conference "Total Quality in the Automotive Industry: Strategies, Methods, Practices", organized by ATA, Turin, Italy.

1991: Experimental Design in Reliability Analysis, at a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, London, UK.

1990: Engineering and Statistics - a Positive Interaction, at a meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, London, UK.