# The Most Useful Data Plot You’ve Never Used

Those of us working in industry with Excel are familiar with scatter plots, line graphs, bar charts, pie charts and maybe a couple of other graph types. Some of us have occasionally used the Analysis Pack to create histograms that don’t update when our data changes (though there is a way to make dynamic histograms in Excel; perhaps I’ll cover this in another blog post).

One of the most important steps in data analysis is to just look at the data. What does the data look like? When we have time-dependent data, we can lay it out as a time-series or, better still, as a control chart (a.k.a. “natural process behavior chart”). Sometimes we just want to see how the data looks as a group. Maybe we want to look at the product weight or the cycle time across production shifts.

Unless you have Minitab, R or another good data analysis tool at your disposal, you have probably never used—maybe never heard of—boxplots. That’s unfortunate, because boxplots should be one of the “go-to” tools in your data analysis tool belt. It’s a real oversight that Excel doesn’t provide a good way to create them.

For the purpose of demonstration, let’s start with creating some randomly generated data:

head(df)

##   variable   value
## 1   group1 -1.5609
## 2   group1 -0.3708
## 3   group1  1.4242
## 4   group1  1.3375
## 5   group1  0.3007
## 6   group1  1.9717

tail(df)

##     variable   value
## 395   group1  1.4591
## 396   group1 -1.5895
## 397   group1 -0.4692
## 398   group1  0.1450
## 399   group1 -0.3332
## 400   group1 -2.3644


If we don’t have much data, we can just plot the points:

library(ggplot2)

ggplot(data = df[1:10,]) +
geom_point(aes(x = variable, y = value)) +
coord_flip() +
theme_bw()


But if we have lots of data, it becomes hard to see the distribution due to overplotting:

ggplot(data = df) +
geom_point(aes(x = variable, y = value)) +
coord_flip() +
theme_bw()


We can try to fix this by changing some parameters, like adding semi-transparency (alpha blending) and using an open plot symbol, but for the most part this just makes the data points harder to see; the distribution is largely lost:

ggplot(data = df) +
geom_point(aes(x = variable, y = value), alpha = 0.3, shape = 1) +
coord_flip() +
theme_bw()


The natural solution is to use histograms, another “go-to” data analysis tool that Excel doesn’t provide in a convenient way:

ggplot(data = df) +
geom_histogram(aes(x = value), binwidth = 1) +
theme_bw()


But histograms don’t scale well when you want to compare multiple groups; the histograms get too short (or too narrow) to really provide useful information. Here I’ve broken the data into eight groups:

head(df)

##   variable   value
## 1   group1 -1.5609
## 2   group1 -0.3708
## 3   group1  1.4242
## 4   group1  1.3375
## 5   group1  0.3007
## 6   group1  1.9717

tail(df)

##     variable   value
## 395   group8 -0.6384
## 396   group8 -3.0245
## 397   group8  1.5866
## 398   group8  1.9747
## 399   group8  0.2377
## 400   group8 -0.3468

ggplot(data = df) +
geom_histogram(aes(x = value), binwidth = 1) +
facet_grid(variable ~ .) +
theme_bw()


Either the histograms need to be taller, making the stack too tall to fit on a page, or we need a better solution.

The solution is the box plot:

ggplot() +
geom_boxplot(data = df, aes(y = value, x = variable)) +
coord_flip() +
theme_bw()


The boxplot provides a nice, compact representation of the distribution of a set of data, and makes it easy to compare across a large number of groups.

There’s a lot of information packed into that graph, so let’s unpack it:

Median
A measure of the central tendency of the data that is a little more robust than the mean (or arithmetic average). Half (50%) of the data falls below this mark. The other half falls above it.
First quartile (25th percentile) hinge
Twenty-five percent (25%) of the data falls below this mark.
Third quartile (75th percentile) hinge
Seventy-five percent (75%) of the data falls below this mark.
Inter-Quartile Range (IQR)
The middle half (50%) of the data falls within this band, drawn between the 25th percentile and 75th percentile hinges.
Lower whisker
The lower whisker connects the first quartile hinge to the lowest data point within 1.5 * IQR of the hinge.
Upper whisker
The upper whisker connects the third quartile hinge to the highest data point within 1.5 * IQR of the hinge.
Outliers
Any data points below 1.5 * IQR of the first quartile hinge, or above 1.5 * IQR of the third quartile hinge, are marked individually as outliers.

We can add additional values to these plots. For instance, it’s sometimes useful to add the mean (average) when the distributions are heavily skewed:

ggplot(data = df, aes(y = value, x = variable)) +
geom_boxplot() +
stat_summary(fun.y = mean, geom="point", shape = 10, size = 3, colour = "blue") +
coord_flip() +
theme_bw()


Graphs created in the R programming language using the ggplot2 and gridExtra packages.

### References

1. R Core Team (2014). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical
Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/.
2. H. Wickham. ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. Springer New York, 2009.
3. Baptiste Auguie (2012). gridExtra: functions in Grid graphics. R package version 0.9.1.
http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=gridExtra

# Flowing Requirements from the VoC or VoP

In a previous post, I talked about the voice of the customer (VoC), voice of the process (VoP) and the necessity of combining the two when specifying a product. Here, I’d like to offer a general method for applying this in the real world, which can be implemented as a template in Excel.

### Recap

I showed that there was a cost function associated with any specification that derived from both the VoC (expressed as tolerances or specification limits) and from the process capability. An example cost function for a two-sided tolerance is reproduced below.

Percent of target production costs given an average production weight and four different process capabilities.

I argued that, given this cost function, specifying a product requires specifying both the product specification limits (or tolerances) and the minimally acceptable process capability, Cpk. Ideally, both of these should flow down from a customer needs analysis to the finished product, and from the finished product to the components, and so on to materials.

### Requirements flow down and up

To flow all requirements down like this, we would need to know the transfer functions, $Y = f(X)$, for each requirement Y and each subcomponent characteristic X. There are methods for doing this, like Design for X or QFD, but they can be difficult to implement. In the real world, we don’t always know these transfer functions, and determining them can require non-trivial research projects that are best left to academia.

As an illustration, we will use the design of a battery (somewhat simplified), where we have to meet a minimum requirement that is the sum of component parts. The illustration below shows the component parts of a battery, or cell. It includes a container (or “cell wall”), positive and negative electrodes (or positive and negative “plates”), electrolyte and terminals that provide electrical connection to the outside world. Usually, we prefer lighter batteries to heavier ones, but for this example, we’ll suppose that a customer requires a minimum weight. This requirement naturally places limits on the weight of all components.

In the absence of transfer functions, we often make our best guess, build a few prototypes, and then adjust the design. This may take several iterations. A better approach is to estimate the weight specification limits and minimum Cpk by calculation before any cells are actually built.

General drawing of the structure of aircraft battery’s vented type NiCd cell. Ransu. Wikipedia, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ File:Aircraft_battery_cell.gif]. Accessed 2014-04-04.

Suppose the customer specifies a cell minimum weight of 100 kg. From similar designs, we know the components that contribute to the cell mass and have an idea of the percentage of total weight that each component contributes.

$m_{cell}=m_{container}+m_{terminals}+m_{electrolyte}+m_{poselect}+m_{negelect}$

Each individual component is therefore a fraction fm of the total cell mass, e.g.

$m_{container}=f_{m,container}m_{cell}$

More generally, for a measurable characteristic c, component i has an expected mean or target value of $T_{i,c}=f_{i,c}\mu_{parent,c}$ or $T_{i,c}=f_{i,c}T_{parent,c}$.

In our example, we may know from similar products or from design considerations that we want to target the following percents for each fraction fm:

• 5% for container
• 19% for terminals
• 24% for electrolyte
• 26% for positive electrodes
• 26% for negative electrodes

### Specification Limits

Upper Specification Limit (USL)
The maximum allowed value of the characteristic. Also referred to as the upper tolerance.
Lower Specification Limit (LSL)
The minimum allowed value of the characteristic. Also referred to as the lower tolerance.

Since the customer will always want to pay as little as possible, a specified lower weight of 100 kg is equivalent to saying that they are only willing to pay for 100 kg of material; any extra material is added cost that reduces our profit margin. If we tried to charge them for 150 kg of material, they would go buy from our competitors. The lower specification limit, or lower tolerance, of the cell weight is then 100 kg.

If the customer does not specify a maximum weight, or upper specification limit, then we determine the upper limit by the maximum extra material cost that we are willing to bear. In this example, we decide that we are willing to absorb up to 5% additional cost per part. Assuming that material and construction contributes 50% to the total cell cost, the USL is then 110 kg. To allow for some variation, we can set a target weight in the middle: 105 kg. From data on previous designs and the design goals, we can apportion the target weight to each component of the design, as shown in the table below.

We can apply the same fractions to the cell USL and LSL to obtain a USL and LSL of each component. As long as parts are built within these limits, the cell will be within specification. The resulting specification for cell and major subcomponents is illustrated in table [tblSpecification]. Further refinement of the allocation of USL and LSL to the components is possible and may be needed if the limits do not make sense from a production or cost perspective.

 Part Percent Target LSL USL /kg /kg /kg Cell 100% 105 100 110 Container 5% 5.2 5 5.5 Terminals 19% 19.9 19 20.9 Electrolyte 24% 25.2 24 26.4 Positive electrodes 26% 27.3 26 28.6 Negative electrodes 26% 27.3 26 28.6

### Variance of components and Cpk

When a characteristic is due to the sum of the part’s components, as with cell mass, the part-to-part variation in the characteristic is likewise due to the variation in the components. However, where the characteristic adds as the sum of the components,

$m_{cell}=m_{container}+m_{terminals}+m_{electrolyte}+m_{poselect}+m_{negelect}$

the variance, $\sigma^{2}$ adds as the sum of squares

$\sigma_{cell}^{2}=\sigma_{container}^{2}+\sigma_{terminal}^{2}+\sigma_{electrolyte}^{2}+\sigma_{poselect}^{2}+\sigma_{negelect}^{2}$

The variance of any individual component is therefore a function of the total parent part variance

$\sigma_{container}^{2}=\sigma_{cell}^{2}-\sigma_{terminal}^{2}-\sigma_{electrolyte}^{2}-\sigma_{poselect}^{2}-\sigma_{negelect}^{2}$

or

$\displaystyle \sigma_{container,mass}^{2}=f_{\sigma,container}\sigma_{cell,mass}^{2}$

Since this is true for all components, the two fractions $f_{m}$ and $f_{\sigma}$ will be approximately equal. Therefore if we don’t know the fractions $f_{\sigma}$, we can use the fraction $f_{m}$, which usually easier to work out, to allocate the variance to each component:

$\displaystyle \sigma_{container,mass}^{2}=f_{m,container}\times\sigma_{cell,mass}^{2}$

More generally, for measurable characteristic $c$ of a subcomponent $i$ of a parent component,

$\displaystyle \sigma_{i,c}=\sqrt{f_{c,i}}\:\sigma_{c,parent}$

Since the given $\sigma$ is the maximum allowed for the parent to meet the desired Cpk, this means that $\sigma_{i}^{2}$ is an estimate for the maximum allowed component variance. Manufacturing can produce parts better than this specification, but any greater variance will drive the parent part out of specification.

### Calculating Specification Limits

In general, there are two conflicting goals in setting specifications:

1. Make them as wide as possible to allow for manufacturing variation while still meeting the VoC.
2. Make them as narrow as possible to stay near the minimum of the cost function.

For this, Crystall Ball or iGrafx are very useful tools during development, as we can simulate a set of arts or processes, analyze the allowed variation in the product and easily flow that variation down to each component. In the absence of these tools, Minitab or Excel can be used to derive slightly less robust solutions.

#### Calculating from Customer Requirements

1. Identify any customer requirements and set specification limits (USL and LSL) accordingly. If the customer requirements are one-sided, determine the maximum additional cost we are willing to accept, and set the other specification limit accordingly. Some approximation of costs may be needed.
2. If no target is given, set the target specification for each requirement as the average of USL and LSL.
3. Set the minimum acceptable Cpk for each specification. Cpk = 1.67 is a good starting value. Use customer requirements for Cpk, where appropriate, and consider, also, whether the application requires a higher Cpk (weakest link in the chain….
4. Calculate the maximum allowed standard deviation to meet the Cpk requirement as $\sigma_{parent}=\left(USL-LSL\right)/\left(6\times Cpk\right)$.
5. For each subcomponent (e.g. the cell has subcomponents of container, electrodes, electrolyte, and so on), apportion the target specification to each of the subcomponents based on engineering considerations and judgement. If the fractions $f$ are known, $T_{i}=f_{i}\times T_{parent}$.
6. Calculate the fraction $f_{i}$ (or percent) of the parent total for each subcomponent if not already established in step (5).
7. Calculate the USL and LSL for each subcomponent by multiplying the parent USL and LSL by the component’s fraction of parent (from step 6). $USL_{i}=f_{i}\times USL_{parent}$ and $LSL_{i}=f_{i}\times LSL_{parent}$.
8. Estimate the allowed standard deviation $\sigma_{i}$ for each subcomponent as
$\displaystyle \sigma_{i}=\mathtt{SQRT}\left(f_{i}\right)\times\sigma_{parent}.$
9. Calculate the minimum allowed Cpk for each subcomponent from the results of (5), (7) and (8), using the target, $T$, for the mean, $\mu$.
$\displaystyle Cpk_{i}=minimum\begin{cases}\frac{USL_{i}-T_{i}}{3\sigma_{i}}\\\frac{T_{i}-LSL_{i}}{3\sigma_{i}}\end{cases}$
10. Repeat steps (5) through (9) until all components have been specified.
11. For each component, report the specified USL, LSL, target T and maximum Cpk.

#### Calculating from Process Data

When there is no clear customer-driven requirement or clear requirement from parent parts (e.g. dimensional specifications that can be driven by the fit of parts), but specification limits are still reasonably needed, we can start from existing process data.

This is undesirable because any change to the process can force a change to the product specification, without any clear understanding of the impact on customer needs or requirements; the VoC is lost.

The calculation of USL and LSL from process data is also somewhat more complicated, as we have to use the population mean and standard deviation to determine where to set the USL and LSL, without really knowing what that mean and standard deviation are.

In the real world, we have to live with such constraints. To deal with these limitations, we will use as much data as is available and calculate the confidence intervals on both the mean and the standard deviation. The calculation for USL and LSL becomes

$\setlength\arraycolsep{2pt}\begin{array}{rl}\displaystyle USL &=\textrm{upper 95\% confidence on the mean}\smallskip\\ \displaystyle &\quad +k\times\textrm{upper 95\% confidence on the standard deviation}\end{array}$
$\setlength\arraycolsep{2pt}\begin{array}{rl}\displaystyle LSL &=\textrm{lower 95\% confidence on the mean}\smallskip\\ &\quad -k\times\textrm{upper 95\% confidence on the standard deviation}\end{array}$

where $k$ is the number of process Sigmas desired, based on the tolerance cost function. Most of the time, we will use $k=5$, to achieve a Cpk of 1.67.

We always use the upper 95% confidence interval on the standard deviation. We don’t care about the lower confidence interval, since a small $\sigma$ will not help us in setting specification limits.

1. Calculate the mean ($\mu_{parent}$) from recent production data. In Excel, use the AVERAGE() function on the data range.
2. Calculate the standard deviation ($\sigma_{parent}$) from recent production data. In Excel, you can use the STDEV() function on the data range.
1. If the order of production data is known, or SPC is in use, a better method is to use the range-based estimate from the control charts. This will be discussed in subsequent training on control charts.
3. Count the number of data points, n, that were used for the calculations (1) and (2). You can use the COUNT() function on the data range.
4. Calculate the 95% confidence level on the mean. In Excel, this is accomplished with
$CL=\mathtt{TINV}\left(\left(1-0.95\right);n-1\right)\times\sigma_{parent}/\mathtt{SQRT}\left(n\right)$

In Excel 2010 and later, TINV() should be replaced with T.INV.2T().

5. Calculate the 95% confidence interval on the mean as $CI_{upper}=\mu+CL$ and $CI_{lower}=\mu-CL$.
6. Calculate the upper and lower 95% confidence limits on the standard deviation. In Excel, this is accomplished with
$\sigma_{upper}=\sigma_{parent}\times\mathtt{SQRT}\left(\left(n-1\right)/\mathtt{CHIINV}\left(\left(1-0.95\right)/2;n-1\right)\right)$

and

$\sigma_{lower}=\sigma_{parent}\times\mathtt{SQRT}\left(\left(n-1\right)/\mathtt{CHIINV}\left(1-\left(1-0.95\right)/2;n-1\right)\right)$

In Excel 2010 and later, CHIINV() can be replaced with CHISQ.INV.RT() for improved accuracy.

7. Calculate the LSL as $LSL_{parent}=CI_{lower}-k\sigma_{upper}$. You might use a value other than 5 if the customer requirements or application require a higher process Sigma.
8. Calculate the USL as $USL_{parent}=CI_{upper}+k\sigma_{upper}$.
9. For each subcomponent (e.g. the cell has subcomponents of positive electrode, negative electrode, electrolyte, and so on), apportion the parent part mean to each of the subcomponents based on engineering considerations and judgement. If the fractions $f$ are known, $T_{i}=f_{i}\times\mu_{parent}$.
10. If the the fraction (or percent) $f_{i}$ of the parent total for each subcomponent is not known, calculate it using the results of step (9).
11. Calculate the USL and LSL for each subcomponent by multiplying the parent USL and LSL by the component’s fraction of parent (from step 6). $USL_{i}=f_{i}\times USL_{parent}$ and $LSL_{i}=f_{i}\times LSL_{parent}$.
12. Estimate the allowed standard deviation $\sigma_{i}$ for each subcomponent as $\sigma_{i}=\mathtt{SQRT}\left(f_{i}\right)\times\sigma_{lower}$
13. Calculate the minimum allowed Cpk for each subcomponent from the results of (5), (7) and (8), using the target $T_{i}$ for the mean, $\mu_{i}$.
$\displaystyle Cpk_{i}=minimum\begin{cases}\frac{USL_{i}-T_{i}}{3\sigma_{i}}\\\frac{T_{i}-LSL_{i}}{3\sigma_{i}}\end{cases}$
14. Repeat steps (9) through (13) until all components have been specified.
15. For each component, report the specified USL, LSL, target T and maximum Cpk.

# Can We do Better than R-squared?

If you're anything like me, you've used Excel to plot data, then used the built-in “add fitted line” feature to overlay a fitted line to show the trend, and displayed the “goodness of fit,” the r-squared (R2) value, on the chart by checking the provided box in the chart dialog.

The R2 calculated in Excel is often used as a measure of how well a model explains a response variable, so that “R2 = 0.8” is interpreted as “80% of the variation in the 'y' variable is explained by my model.” I think that the ease with which the R2 value can be calculated and added to a plot is one of the reasons for its popularity.

There's a hidden trap, though. R2 will increase as you add terms to a model, even if those terms offer no real explanatory power. By using the R2 that Excel so helpfully provides, we can fool ourselves into believing that a model is better than it is.

Below I'll demonstrate this and show an alternative that can be implemented easily in R.

### Some data to work with

First, let's create a simple, random data set, with factors a, b, c and response variable y.

head(my.df)

##       y a       b      c
## 1 2.189 1 -1.2935 -0.126
## 2 3.912 2 -0.4662  1.623
## 3 4.886 3  0.1338  2.865
## 4 5.121 4  1.2945  4.692
## 5 4.917 5  0.1178  5.102
## 6 4.745 6  0.4045  5.936


Here is what this data looks like:

### Calculating R-squared

What Excel does when it displays the R2 is create a linear least-squares model, which in R looks something like:

my.lm <- lm(y ~ a + b + c, data = my.df)


Excel also does this when we call RSQ() in a worksheet. In fact, we can do this explicitly in Excel using the Regression analysis option in the Analysis Pack add-on, but I don't know many people who use this, and Excel isn't known for its reliability in producing good output from the Analysis Pack.

In R, we can obtain R2 via the summary() function on a linear model.

summary(my.lm)

##
## Call:
## lm(formula = y ~ a + b + c, data = my.df)
##
## Residuals:
##     Min      1Q  Median      3Q     Max
## -1.2790 -0.6006  0.0473  0.5177  1.5299
##
## Coefficients:
##             Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(&gt;|t|)
## (Intercept)    2.080      0.763    2.72    0.034 *
## a             -0.337      0.776   -0.43    0.679
## b             -0.489      0.707   -0.69    0.515
## c              1.038      0.817    1.27    0.250
## ---
## Signif. codes:  0 '***' 0.001 '**' 0.01 '*' 0.05 '.' 0.1 ' ' 1
##
## Residual standard error: 1.1 on 6 degrees of freedom
## Multiple R-squared:  0.833,  Adjusted R-squared:  0.75
## F-statistic:   10 on 3 and 6 DF,  p-value: 0.00948


Since summary() produces a list object as output, we can grab just the R2 value.

summary(my.lm)$r.squared  ## [1] 0.8333  Normally, we would (somewhat loosely) interpret this as telling us that about 83% of the variation in the response y is explained by the model. Notice that there is also an "adjusted r-squared” value given by summary(). This tells us that only 75% of the variation is explained by the model. Which is right? ### The problem with R-squared Models that have many terms will always give higher R2 values, just because more terms will slightly improve the model fit to the given data. The unadjusted R2 is wrong. The calculation for adjusted R2 is intended to partially compensate for that “overfit,” so it's better. It's nice that R shows us both values, and a pity that Excel won't show the adjusted value. The only way to get an adjusted R2 in Excel is to run the Regression analysis; otherwise, we have to calculate adjusted R2 manually. Both R2 and adjusted R2 are measures of how well the model explains the given data. However, in industry we usually want to know something a little different. We don't build regression models to explain only the data we have; we build them to think about future results. We want R2 to tell us how well the model predicts the future. That is, we want a predictive R2. Minitab has added the ability to calculate predictive R2 in Minitab 17, and has a nice blog post explaining this statistic. ### Calcuting predictive R-squared Neither R nor Excel provide a means of calculating the predictive R2 within the default functions. While some free R add-on packages provide this ability (DAAG, at least), we can easily do it ourselves. We'll need a linear model, created with lm(), for the residuals so we can calculate the “PRESS” statistic, and then we need the sum of squares of the terms so we can calculate a predictive R2. Since the predictive R2 depends entirely on the PRESS statistic, we could skip the added work of calculating predictive R2 and just use PRESS, as some authors advocate. The lower the PRESS, the better the model is at fitting future data from the same process, so we can use PRESS to compare different models. Personally, I'm used to thinking in terms of R2, and I like having the ability to compare to the old R2 statistic that I'm familiar with. To calculate PRESS, first we calculate the predictive residuals, then take the sum of squares (thanks to (Walker’s helpful blog post) for this). This is pretty easy if we already have a linear model. It would take a little more work in Excel. pr <- residuals(my.lm)/(1 - lm.influence(my.lm)$hat)
PRESS <- sum(pr^2)
PRESS

## [1] 19.9


The predictive R2 is then (from a helpful comment by Ibanescu on LikedIn) the PRESS divided by the total sum of squares, subtracted from one. The total sum of squares can be calculated directly as the sum of the squared residuals, or obtained by summing over Sum Sq from an anova() on our linear model. I prefer using the anova function, as any statistical subtleties are more likely to be properly accounted for there than in my simple code.

# anova to calculate residual sum of squares
my.anova <- anova(my.lm)
tss <- sum(my.anova$"Sum Sq") # predictive R^2 pred.r.squared <- 1 - PRESS/(tss) pred.r.squared  ## [1] 0.5401  You'll notice that this is smaller than the residual R2, which is itself smaller than the basic R2. This is the point of the exercise. We don't want to fool ourselves into thinking we have a better model than we actually do. One way to think of this is that 29% (83% – 54%) of the model is explained by too many factors and random correlations, which we would have attributed to our model if we were just using Excel's built-in function. When the model is good and has few terms, the differences are small. For example, working through the examples in Mitsa's two posts, we see that for her model 3, R2 = 0.96 and the predictive R2 = 0.94, so calculating the predictive R2 wasn't really worth the extra effort for that model. Unfortunately, we can't know, in advance, which models are “good.” For Mitsa's model 1 we have R2 = 0.95 and predictive R2 = 0.32. Even the adjusted R2 looks pretty good for model 1, at 0.94, but we see from the predictive R2 that our model is not very useful. This is the sort of thing we need to know to make correct decisions. ### Automating In R, we can easily wrap these in functions that we can source() and call directly, reducing the typing. Just create a linear model with lm() (or an equivalent) and pass that to either function. Note that pred_r_squared() calls PRESS(), so both functions have to be sourced. pred_r_squared <- function(linear.model) { lm.anova <- anova(linear.model) tss <- sum(lm.anova$"Sum Sq")
# predictive R^2
pred.r.squared <- 1 - PRESS(linear.model)/(tss)
return(pred.r.squared)
}

PRESS <- function(linear.model) {
pr <- residuals(linear.model)/(1 - lm.influence(linear.model)$hat) PRESS <- sum(pr^2) return(PRESS) }  Then we just call the function to get the result: pred.r.squared <- pred_r_squared(my.lm) pred.r.squared  ## [1] 0.5401  I've posted these as Gists on GitHub, with extra comments, so you can copy and paste from here or go branch or copy them there. ### References and further reading # Normality and Testing for Normality Many of our statistical tests make assumptions about the distribution of the underlying population. Many of the most common—ImR (XmR) and XbarR control charts, ANOVA, t-tests—assume normal distributions in the underlying population (or normal distributions in the residuals, in the case of ANOVA), and we’re often told that we must carefully check the assumptions. At the same time, there’s a lot of conflicting advice about how to test for normality. There are the statistical tests for normality, such as Shapiro-Wilk or Anderson-Darling. There’s the “fat pencil” test, where we just eye-ball the distribution and use our best judgement. We could even use control charts, as they’re designed to detect deviations from the expected distribution. We are discouraged from using the “fat pencil” because it will result in a lot of variation from person to person. We’re often told not to rely too heavily on the statistical tests because they are not sensitive with small sample sizes and too sensitive to the tails. In industrial settings, our data is often messy, and the tails are likely to be the least reliable portion of our data. I’d like to explore what the above objections really look like. I’ll use R to generate some fake data based on the normal distribution and the t distribution, and compare the frequency of p-values obtained from the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality. ### A Function to test normality many times First, we need to load our libraries library(ggplot2) library(reshape2)  To make this easy to run, I’ll create a function to perform a large number of normality tests (Shapiro-Wilk) for sample sizes n = 5, 10 and 1000, all drawn from the same data: #' @name assign_vector #' @param data A vector of data to perform the t-test on. #' @param n An integer indicating the number of t-tests to perform. Default is 1000 #' @return A data frame in "tall" format assign_vector <- function(data, n = 1000) { # replicate the call to shapiro.test n times to build up a vector of p-values p.5 <- replicate(n=n, expr=shapiro.test(sample(my.data, 5, replace=TRUE))$p.value)
p.10 <- replicate(n=n, expr=shapiro.test(sample(my.data, 10, replace=TRUE))$p.value) p.1000 <- replicate(n=n, expr=shapiro.test(sample(my.data, 1000, replace=TRUE))$p.value)
#' Combine the data into a data frame,
#' one column for each number of samples tested.
p.df <- cbind(p.5, p.10, p.1000)
p.df <- as.data.frame(p.df)
colnames(p.df) <- c("5 samples","10 samples","1000 samples")
#' Put the data in "tall" format, one column for number of samples
#' and one column for the p-value.
p.df.m <- melt(p.df)
#' Make sure the levels are sorted correctly.
p.df.m <- transform(p.df.m, variable = factor(variable, levels = c("5 samples","10 samples","1000 samples")))
return(p.df.m)
}


### Clean, random data

I want to simulate real-word conditions, where we have an underlying population from which we sample a limited number of times. To start, I’ll generate 100000 values from a normal distribution. To keep runtimes low I’ll have assign_vector() sample from that distribution when performing the test for normality.

n.rand <- 100000
n.test <- 10000
my.data <- rnorm(n.rand)
p.df.m <- assign_vector(my.data, n = n.test)


We would expect that normally distributed random data will have an equal probability of any given p-value. i.e. 5% of the time we’ll see p-value ≤ 0.05, 5% of the time we’ll see p-value > 0.05 and ≤ 0.10, and so on through > 0.95 and ≤ 1.00. Let’s graph that and see what we get for each sample size:

ggplot(p.df.m, aes(x = value)) +
geom_histogram(binwidth = 1/10) +
facet_grid(facets=variable ~ ., scales="free_y") +
xlim(0,1) +
ylab("Count of p-values") +
xlab("p-values") +
theme(text = element_text(size = 16))


Histogram of p-values for the normal distribution, for sample sizes 5, 10 and 1000.

This is, indeed, what we expected.

Now let’s compare the normal distribution to a t distribution. The t distribution would pass the “fat pencil” test—it looks normal to the eye:

ggplot(NULL, aes(x=x, colour = distribution)) +
stat_function(fun=dnorm, data = data.frame(x = c(-6,6), distribution = factor(1)), size = 1) +
stat_function(fun=dt, args = list( df = 20), data = data.frame(x = c(-6,6), distribution = factor(2)), linetype = "dashed", size = 1) +
scale_colour_manual(values = c("blue","red"), labels = c("Normal","T-Distribution")) +
theme(text = element_text(size = 12),
legend.position = c(0.85, 0.75)) +
xlim(-4, 4) +
xlab(NULL) +
ylab(NULL)

Starting with random data generated from the t-distribution:

my.data <- rt(n.rand, df = 20)


Histogram of p-values for the t distribution, for sample sizes 5, 10 and 1000.

The tests for normality are not very sensitive for small sample sizes, and are much more sensitive for large sample sizes. Even with a sample size of 1000, the data from a t distribution only fails the test for normality about 50% of the time (add up the frequencies for p-value > 0.05 to see this).

### Testing the tails

Since the t distribution is narrower in the middle range and has longer tails than the normal distribution, the normality test might be failing because the entire distribution doesn’t look quite normal; we haven’t learned anything specifically about the tails.

To test the tails, we can construct a data set that uses the t distribution for the middle 99% of the data, and the normal distribution for the tails.

my.data <- rt(n.rand, df = 20)
my.data.2 <- rnorm(n.rand)
# Trim off the tails
my.data <- my.data[which(my.data < 3 & my.data > -3)]
# Add in tails from the other distribution
my.data <- c(my.data, my.data.2[which(my.data.2 < -3 | my.data.2 > 3)])


Histogram of p-values for sample sizes 5, 10 and 1000, from a data set constructed from the t distribution in the range -3 to +3 sigmas, with tails from the normal distribution below -3 and above +3.

Despite 99% of the data being from the t distribution, this is almost identical to our test with data from just the normal distribution. It looks like the tails may be having a larger impact on the normality test than rest of the data

Now let’s flip this around: data that is 99% normally-distributed, but using the t distribution in the extreme tails.

my.data <- rnorm(n.rand)
my.data.2 <- rt(n.rand, df = 20)
# Trim off the tails
my.data <- my.data[which(my.data < 3 & my.data > -3)]
# Add in tails from the other distribution
my.data <- c(my.data, my.data.2[which(my.data.2 < -3 | my.data.2 > 3)])


Histogram of p-values for sample sizes 5, 10 and 1000, from a data set constructed from the normal distribution in the range -3 to +3 sigmas, with tails from the t-distribution below -3 and above +3.

Here, 99% of the data is from the normal distribution, yet the normality test looks almost the same as the normality test for just the t-distribution. If you check the y-axis scales carefully, you’ll see that the chance of getting p-value ≤ 0.05 is a bit lower here than for the t distribution.

To make the point further, suppose we have highly skewed data:

my.data <- rlnorm(n.rand, 0, 0.4)


This looks like:

For small sample sizes, even this is likely to pass a test for normality:

### What have we learned?

• With small sample sizes, everything looks normal.
• The normality tests are, indeed, very sensitive to what goes on in the extreme tails.

In other words, if we have enough data to fail a normality test, we always will because our real-world data won’t be clean enough. If we don’t have enough data to reliably fail a normality test, then there’s no point in performing the test, and we have to rely on the fat pencil test or our own understanding of the underlying processes.

Don’t get too hung up on whether your data is normally distributed or not. When evaluating and summarizing data, rely mainly on your brain and use the statistics only to catch really big errors in judgement. When attempting to make predictions about future performance, e.g. calculating Cpk or simulating a process, recognize the opportunities for errors in judgment and explicitly state you assumptions.

# Rewriting plot.qcc using ggplot2 and grid

The free and open-source R statistics package is a great tool for data analysis. The free add-on package qcc provides a wide array of statistical process control charts and other quality tools, which can be used for monitoring and controlling industrial processes, business processes or data collection processes. It’s a great package and highly customizable, but the one feature I wanted was the ability to manipulate the control charts within the grid graphics system, and that turned out to be not so easy.

I went all-in and completely rewrote qcc’s plot.qcc() function to use Hadley Wickham’s ggplot2 package, which itself is built on top of grid graphics. I have tested the new code against all the examples provided on the qcc help page, and the new ggplot2 version works for all the plots, including X-bar and R, p- and u- and c-charts.

In qcc, an individuals and moving range (XmR or ImR) chart can be created simply:

library(qcc)
my.xmr.raw <- c(5045,4350,4350,3975,4290,4430,4485,4285,3980,3925,3645,3760,3300,3685,3463,5200)
x <- qcc(my.xmr.raw, type = "xbar.one", title = "Individuals Chart\nfor Wheeler sample data")
x <- qcc(matrix(cbind(my.xmr.raw[1:length(my.xmr.raw)-1], my.xmr.raw[2:length(my.xmr.raw)]), ncol = 2), type = "R", title = "Moving Range Chart\nfor Wheeler sample data")


This both generates the plot and creates a qcc object, assigning it to the variable x. You can generate another copy of the plot with plot(x).

To use my new plot function, you will need to have the packages ggplot2, gtable, qcc and grid installed. Download my code from the qcc_ggplot project on Github, load qcc in R and then run source("qcc.plot.R"). The ggplot2-based version of the plotting function will be used whenever a qcc object is plotted.

library(qcc)
source("qcc.plot.R")
my.xmr.raw <- c(5045,4350,4350,3975,4290,4430,4485,4285,3980,3925,3645,3760,3300,3685,3463,5200)
x <- qcc(my.xmr.raw, type = "xbar.one", title = "Individuals Chart\nfor Wheeler sample data")
x <- qcc(matrix(cbind(my.xmr.raw[1:length(my.xmr.raw)-1], my.xmr.raw[2:length(my.xmr.raw)]), ncol = 2), type = "R", title = "Moving Range Chart\nfor Wheeler sample data")


Below, you can compare the individuals and moving range charts generated by qcc and by my new implementation of plot.qcc():

The qcc individuals chart as implemented in the qcc package.

The qcc individuals chart as implemented using ggplot2 and grid graphics.

The qcc moving range chart as implemented in the qcc package.

The qcc moving range chart as implemented using ggplot2 and grid graphics.

### New features

In addition to the standard features in qcc plots, I’ve added a few new options.

size or cex
Set the size of the points used in the plot. This is passed directly to geom_point().
font.size
Sets the size of text elements. Passed directly to ggplot() and grid’s viewport().
title = element_blank()
Eliminate the main graph title completely, and expand the data region to fill the empty space. As with qcc, with the default title = NULL a title will be created, or a user-defined text string may be passed to title.
new.plot
If TRUE, creates a new graph (grid.newpage()). Otherwise, will write into the existing device and viewport. Intended to simplify the creation of multi-panel or composite charts.
digits
The argument digits is provided by the qcc package to control the number of digits printed on the graph, where it either uses the default option set for R or a user-supplied value. I have tried to add some intelligence to calculating a default value under the assumption that we can tell something about the measurement from the data supplied. You can see the results in the sample graphs above.

### Lessons Learned

This little project turned out to be somewhat more difficult than I had envisioned, and there are several lessons-learned, particularly in the use of ggplot2.

First, ggplot2 really needs data frames when plotting. Passing discrete values or variables not connected to a data frame will often result in errors or just incorrect results. This is different than either base graphics or grid graphics, and while Hadley Wickham has mentioned this before, I hadn’t fully appreciated it. For instance, this doesn’t work very well:

my.test.data <- data.frame(x = seq(1:10), y = round(runif(10, 100, 300)))
my.test.gplot <- ggplot(my.test.data, aes(x = x, y = y)) +
geom_point(shape = 20)
index.1 <- c(5, 6, 7)
my.test.gplot <- my.test.gplot +
geom_point(aes(x = x[index.1], y = y[index.1]), col = "red")
my.test.gplot


Different variations of this sometimes worked, or sometimes only plotted some of the points that are supposed to be colored red.

However, if I wrap that index.1 into a data frame, it works perfectly:

my.test.data <- data.frame(x = seq(1:10), y = round(runif(10, 100, 300)))
my.test.gplot <- ggplot(my.test.data, aes(x = x, y = y)) +
geom_point(shape = 20)
index.1 <- c(5, 6, 7)
my.test.subdata <- my.test.data[index.1,]
my.test.gplot <- my.test.gplot +
geom_point(data = my.test.subdata, aes(x = x, y = y), col = "red")
my.test.gplot


Another nice lesson was that aes() doesn’t always work properly when ggplot2 is called from within a function. In this case, aes_string() usually works. There’s less documentation than I would like on this, but you can search the ggplot2 Google Group or Stack Overflow for more information.

One of the bigger surprises was discovering that aes() searches for data frames in the global environment. When ggplot() is used from within a function, though, any variables created within that function are not accessible in the global environment. The work-around is to tell ggplot which environment to search in, and a simple addition of environment = environment() within the ggplot() call seems to do the trick. This is captured in a stack overflow post and the ggplot2 issue log.

my.test.data <- data.frame(x = seq(1:10), y = round(runif(10, 100, 300)))
my.test.gplot <- ggplot(my.test.data, environment = environment(), aes(x = x, y = y)) +
geom_point(shape = 20)
index.1 <- c(5, 6, 7)
my.test.subdata <- my.test.data[index.1,]
my.test.gplot <- my.test.gplot +
geom_point(data = my.test.subdata, aes(x = x, y = y), col = "blue")
my.test.gplot


Finally, it is possible to completely and seamlessly replace a function created in a package and loaded in that package’s namespace. When I set out, I wanted to end up with a complete replacement for qcc’s internal plot.qcc() function, but wasn’t quite sure this would be possible. Luckily, the below code, called after the function declaration, worked. One thing I found was that I needed to name my function the same as the one in the qcc package in order for the replacement to work in all cases. If I used a different name for my function, it would work when I called plot() with a qcc object, but qcc’s base graphics version would be used when calling qcc() with the parameter plot = TRUE.

unlockBinding(sym="plot.qcc", env=getNamespace("qcc"));
assignInNamespace(x="plot.qcc", value=plot.qcc, ns=asNamespace("qcc"), envir=getNamespace("qcc"));
assign("plot.qcc", plot.qcc, envir=getNamespace("qcc"));
lockBinding(sym="plot.qcc", env=getNamespace("qcc"));


### Outlook

For now, the code suits my immediate needs, and I hope that you will find it useful. I have some ideas for additional features that I may implement in the future. There are some parts of the code that can and should be further cleaned up, and I’ll tweak the code as needed. I am certainly interested in any bug reports and in seeing any forks; good ideas are always welcome.

### References

• R Core Team (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/.
• Scrucca, L. (2004). qcc: an R package for quality control charting and statistical process control. R News 4/1, 11-17.
• H. Wickham. ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis. Springer New York, 2009.
• Wheeler, Donald. “Individual Charts Done Right and Wrong.” Quality Digest. 2 Feb 20102 Feb 2010. Print. <http://www.spcpress.com/pdf/DJW206.pdf>.

# Individuals and Moving Range Charts in R

Individuals and moving range charts, abbreviated as ImR or XmR charts, are an important tool for keeping a wide range of business and industrial processes in the zone of economic production, where a process produces the maximum value at the minimum costs.

While there are many commercial applications that will produce such charts, one of my favorites is the free and open-source software package R. The freely available add-on package qcc will do all the heavy-lifting. There is little documentation on how to create a moving range chart, but the code is actually quite simple, as shown below.

The individuals chart requires a simple vector of data. The moving range chart needs a two-column matrix arranged so that qcc() can calculate the moving range from each row.

library(qcc)
my.xmr.raw <- c(5045,4350,4350,3975,4290,4430,4485,4285,3980,3925,3645,3760,3300,3685,3463,5200)
#' Create the individuals chart and qcc object
my.xmr.x <- qcc(my.xmr.raw, type = "xbar.one", plot = TRUE)
#' Create the moving range chart and qcc object. qcc takes a two-column matrix
#' that is used to calculate the moving range.
my.xmr.raw.r <- matrix(cbind(my.xmr.raw[1:length(my.xmr.raw)-1], my.xmr.raw[2:length(my.xmr.raw)]), ncol=2)
my.xmr.mr <- qcc(my.xmr.raw.r, type="R", plot = TRUE)


This produces the individuals chart:

The qcc individuals chart.

and the moving range chart:

The qcc moving range chart.

The code is also available as a gist.

### References

• R Core Team (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. URL http://www.R-project.org/.
• Scrucca, L. (2004). qcc: an R package for quality control charting and statistical process control. R News 4/1, 11-17.
• Wheeler, Donald. “Individual Charts Done Right and Wrong.” Quality Digest. 2 Feb 20102 Feb 2010. Print. <http://www.spcpress.com/pdf/DJW206.pdf>.

# R Function Reference

Updated below

The R Function Reference is a mind map that I created as a guide for novice and intermediate users of the R statistics language. When you first open it, I suggest that you collapse all the nodes by clicking on the “Expand/Collapse all nodes” button in the bottom left of the screen to make the map easier to navigate. You can also adjust the zoom level with the slider next to that button.

The top-level nodes of the R Function Reference

The mind map is arranged in eight sections, or main branches, arranged by task. What do you want to do? Each branch covers a general set tasks, such as learning to use R, running R, working with data, statistical analysis or plotting data. The end of each string of nodes is generally a function and example. The Reference provides code fragments, rather than details of the function or complete reproducible code blocks. Once you’ve followed the Reference and have an idea of how to accomplish something, you can look up the details in R’s help system (e.g. “?read.csv” to learn more about using the read.csv() function), or search Google or the online R-Help mailing list archives for answers using the function name.

There are a lot of useful nodes and examples, especially in the “Graphs” section, but the mind map is not complete; some trails end before you get to a useful function reference. I am sorry for that, but it’s a work in progress, and will be slowly updated over time.

### Update 1

In comments, several users reported problems opening the mind map. With a little investigation, it appears that the size of the mind map is the problem. To try to fix the problems , I have split the mind map out into several small mind maps, all linked together.

The new main mind map is the R Function Reference, Main. The larger branches on this main map no longer expand to their own content, but contain a link to a “child” mind map. The link looks like a sheet of paper with an arrow pointing to the right, click on it and little cartoon speech bubble will pop up with a link that you have to click on to go to the child mind map. Likewise, the central nodes on the child mind maps contain a link back to the main mind map.

Due to load times and the required extra clicks, this may slightly reduce usability for users who didn’t have a problem with the all-in-one version, but will hopefully make the mind map accessible to a broader audience.

I have to offer praise to the developers of Mind42. Though I couldn’t directly split branches off into their own mind maps or duplicate the mind map, it was very easy to export the mind map as a native Mind42 file and then import it multiple times, editing the copies without any loss of data or links. The ability to link directly between mind maps within Mind42 was also a key enabling feature. Considering that this is a free web app, its capabilities are most impressive. They were also quick to respond when I posted a call for help on the Mind42 forum.

Please let me know how the new, “improved” version works.

The old mind map, containing everything, is still available, but I will not update it.