Statistical approaches in surface finishing. Part 1. Introductory review and parametric hypothesis testing

This paper is the first of a short series of articles aimed towards describing some of the various statistical methods and approaches that have been used in surface finishing. The methods fall broadly into two areas: analysis and design-of-experiments. This article introduces the subject, briefly reviewing the wide use of a number of experimental design tools in recent surface finishing research before starting with a discussion of parametric hypothesis testing, the simplest of the statistical methods.