Yes. In your job, you have to make decisions based on data sets that are uncertain -- repeated measurements that aren't identical; one piece of data that looks like a dreaded outlier; data taken by different analysts. And at the end of the day, you'd like to know how likely it is your decisions will be correct; or, to say it differently, you'd like to know your risk of being wrong about your decision.
For example, instead of saying, "It kind of looks like our product is maybe within specifications -- I guess we can probably ship it," wouldn't it be better to say, "If we choose to ship this product, we can be 99.997% confident that it will meet the customer's specifications; our risk of being out of specification is only 0.00003"? You know your risk of being wrong. It's the better way to run a business.
Yes, a course in statistics will help you.
Want to take an in-person ACS Short Course in statistics? There are four opportunities this year to register for Statistical Analysis of Laboratory Data!
You'll sleep better at night.
This blog post was written by ACS Professional Education instructor, Stanley N. Deming who teaches ACS Short Courses in the areas of experimental design, optimization and statistical analysis of laboratory data.
If you cannot take our in-person course, we offer an introductory online course, Introduction to Statistical Analysis of Laboratory Data.