As a research specialist at Quest Diagnostics, George Woodrow III develops real-time process-control systems to modernize the traditional quality control practices used by the clinical laboratory. He uses Mathematica to develop effective algorithms and explore the true performance of the systems, as well as to help explain to his colleagues how the algorithms work. Woodrow says, "This gives them a way of understanding what's going on in terms that they understand without having to understand all of the details, and this is a critical breakthrough."

Woodrow says Mathematica has been key in greatly minimizing the laboratory's error rate. "Our error rate, in terms of sending incorrect results to our clients, has decreased by four orders of magnitude. So we used to have 10 to 15 errors a day in our laboratory. Now, it's 2 or 3 every year, and that's a big advantage."

Related Links

• Mathematica's Manipulate Command
• Operations Research Industry Solutions
• Quest Diagnostics