Successfully Teaching Statistics to C-Suite Execs is Topic at ISMI Symposium.

AUSTIN, Texas -- Even the most mathematically challenged corporate executives can learn to like statistics if their statisticians know how to teach to different learning styles - and the key to that knowledge can be found at the 4th Annual ISMI Symposium on Manufacturing Effectiveness.

A special talk for industrial statisticians - "You Can't Flunk Your CFO: Teaching Statistics to All Learning Styles" - will be offered in two consecutive sessions starting at 4:10 p.m. Oct. 24 during the Symposium, which has emerged as the semiconductor industry's most rewarding conference on high-level and practical issues in fab productivity.

"Learning styles affect how people think about and respond to almost all concepts," said Diane K. Michelson, Member of the Technical Staff at ISMI and organizer of the statistics sessions. "By learning how to present statistics to professionals with different learning styles and backgrounds, industrial statisticians can increase their effectiveness and make their work more understandable and appreciated."

The sessions will be taught by Kathy Hall, an expert statistician with Hewlett-Packard wafer fab in Corvallis, OR. Hall has a PhD in statistics from Oregon State University and is the industry member of the Oregon Mathematics Education Council, the state board chartered to improve the effectiveness of mathematics teaching for K-16 in Oregon. Assisting her will be Madhuri Mulekar, a professor at the University of South Alabama, who will instruct on how to respond effectively to different learning styles.

Hall will begin each session by asking participants to use audience response units ("clickers") to rate themselves on the Myers-Briggs inventory of learning styles. "We will use this data to make sure our generalizations about the thinking styles of engineers and statisticians are correct. Also, participants can use the clickers to score themselves at the end of the talk," Hall said.

The 2007 ISMI Symposium, on Oct. 24-25 at the Hilton Austin Airport hotel, emphasizes "productivity in depth" -- with exclusive data to enhance attendees' engineering knowledge and bring cutting-edge benefits to their companies. More than 50 exhibitors - including suppliers of manufacturing equipment, materials, and software - distinguish this year's Symposium.

Keynoting the opening day of the Symposium will be Douglas Grose, senior vice president of technology development for AMD. Title of his talk is "Next Generation Factory (NGF): Redefining our approach to meeting customer demand."

The ISMI Symposium is preceded Oct. 22-23 by two days of workshops and short courses on leading-edge technologies aimed at giving companies more productivity at lower cost. The Symposium and workshops together comprise this year's inaugural ISMI Manufacturing Week.

More information is available at http://ismi.sematech.org/ismisymposium/.

ISMI is a global alliance of the world's major semiconductor manufacturers, dedicated to reducing cost per wafer, and ultimately cost per die, through cooperative programs focused on manufacturing effectiveness. The consortium conducts programs in manufacturing infrastructure, methods, standards, and productivity, with the aim of reducing the costs of producing finished wafers and chips and driving solutions to major productivity challenges. ISMI is a wholly owned subsidiary of SEMATECH of Austin, TX. More information is available at http://ismi.sematech.org/corporate/index.htm.