Although statistical theory is extremely useful in analyzing already collected data, it is invaluable in the planning stage of the project.

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Do you need the expertise of a statistician in helping to plan your legal strategy, experimental design or quality control strategy? Or possibly you need help in inventory control, worker's compensation liability estimates, environmental law suites, or other problems?

If so, you should contact me, Rick Bilonick, PhD, CQE (rab@nauticom.net) to discuss your plans. I am available to provide consulting on a project by project basis. Statistical analysis can be very profitably applied to planning your projects -- often providing large savings in time and money and avoiding legal difficulties. It can also be usefully applied to data already collected to solve current problems -- both financial and legal.

Previous Projects

Here are brief descriptions for a few of the projects I have worked on in the last twenty years:

Legal

Provided solid support for challenging shipment descrepancies that cost the producer hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Successfully defended the producer against multi-million dollar claim of a failure to meet contract specifications.

Financial

Estimated the likely amount of worker's compensation claims to eventually be paid based on historical claim resolution and outstanding claims.

Quality Control

Conducted numerous mine evaluation studies to determine the feasibility of meeting contract specifications. Applied quality control techniques to maintain the integrity of coal samples used as the basis of payment.

Sampling

Conducted sampling studies to assess compliance with the contract specifications for delivered coal.

Provided assistance in the design of environmental sampling campaigns for the clean up of industrial sites, particulate material sampling (of metallic ores, liquids, etc.) and the use of geostatistical methods.

Versed in the analysis of mechanical sampling system performance and the use of empirical bias tests of sampling methods and equipment used for industrial and environmental sampling.

Inventory Control and Auditing

Determined the likely amount of savings (several million dollars) due to changes in inventory replenishment strategies before actual implementation based on a stratified random sample from an inventory exceeding 50,000 different products.

Experimental Design

Designed countless experiments for coal combustion studies. Designs included factorial, fractional factorial, split-plot, mixture among others.

Environmental

In various projects, I investigated the spatial distribution of acid rain over the northeastern United States and the distribution of trace element concentrations in coal deposits. Also worked on determining the level of contamination of industrial sites.

Risk Qualified Mapping

Have used spatial statistical methods (geostatistics, semivariograms, kriging) in the construction of risk qualified maps for mineral deposits and environmental contaminants.

Statistical Instruction

I have taught numerous college and company courses covering basic statistics, experimental design, quality control, sampling, and the use of statistical software (S-Plus and SAS). I can tailor a course for your needs.

Qualifications

I graduated in 1979 with a PhD in Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh and for the last 18 years have provided (and continue to provide) statistical consulting services to many departments within CONSOL Inc. (located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of CONSOL Energy Group). I am also a Certified Quality Engineer (CQE). This certification is provided through the American Society for Quality Control.

Resume.

Publications

Contact

I can be reached by e-mail: rab@nauticom.net

or phone: 412.831.4509

or fax: 412.831.4939
(Fax is available between 5pm to 8:30am, weekdays, and all day Saturday and Sunday, or e-mail me for a time to fax during the day.)

or mail:

Dr. Richard A. Bilonick
P. O. Box 113564
Pittsburgh, PA 15241

The picture at the top is from a computer animation showing a 3-dimensional projection from the 6-dimensional experimental design space of a 7-factor constrained mixture experiment. Only four of the seven factors can be shown in one three dimensional representation. The experimental region was constructed using Waterloo Maple V and modeled, animated and rendered using RealSoft Real3D.