Author Archives: Steve Daum

How my thoughts became an article on 4th Generation SPC

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Steve DaumI occasionally get the urge to write some thoughts. These often end up as files on my computer; never to be opened or used again. Every few years, I sort by date and start deleting the oldest files. Once in a great while, some document will feel more useful and I’ll develop it further. Eventually, I might show it to someone and say, ‘do you think anyone would read this?’ Usually the answer is no. Here is an exception. The article includes thoughts I’ve developed after several years and many customer conversations about the experience of implementing SPC. Thanks to Barb Cleary and Beth Savage for cleaning this up and finding a publisher, Quality Digest.

http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/metrology-article/it-s-time-new-and-innovative-approach-spc.html

If you have comments or questions drop me an email at steved@pqsystems.com

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Thanks for responding!

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Steve DaumWe recently surveyed some of our CHARTrunner users. Each time we do this, I am amazed at the diversity among our charting software users. CHARTrunner has found a home in so many different industries. If you responded to the survey, thank you. Your input is invaluable. It helps us to prioritize and plan for future product improvements.

For many years PQ has taken pride that our customers drive the next set of enhancements to our software products. Recently, we began an effort to shorten this feedback cycle. The idea is to get customer input earlier and more often during a project. To this end, we are having many reviews of progress throughout a project. Additionally, we are making daily builds of functioning, if incomplete, new versions as enhancements are added. It is important that we get feedback from non-software developers who have a stake in the project outcome. This means not only sales staff, tech support analysts, and the management team–but most importantly customers.

If you did not have a chance to respond to our survey or if you are interested in providing feedback on early product releases, feel free to drop me an email (steved@pqsystems.com). We would love to hear your suggestions and evaluations of early software builds.

Steve

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Introducing CHARTrunner-m: Your SPC watchdog

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Steve DaumSoftware developers at PQ often get opportunities to talk to customers. This might happen during a gnarly tech support call or it might be part of a pre-sales question and answer session. It is not unusual that good ideas for improving our software surface during these calls.

Over the last several years we began to notice a pattern in many of these conversations. The customer would start by saying something like this:

I keep track of over 150 charts…

I have so many control charts…

It takes so long to review all my control charts…

These conversations and other market research lead PQ to last week’s release of a new product named CHARTrunner-m.

CHARTrunner-m takes a fresh look at the human workflow of using SPC control charts. We had the thought that software should allow you to deploy control charts more widely and for more quality metrics without significant increases in your costs or effort.

The thinking for CHARTrunner-m has incubated among our staff for a long time. It has been rewarding and interesting to be part of the team that brought this to market. Please take a moment to learn more about CHARTrunner-m by watching this short video. In the coming weeks we’ll point you to more information where you can learn the benefits of this innovative approach to SPC.

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M is for monitoring

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Steve DaumOver the past several months, I’ve been part of a team working on a new product that will rev up your SPC. CHARTrunner-m is a companion to CHARTrunner, our existing SPC charting software. CHARTrunner-m provides control chart monitoring and sends email and text message notifications when something out of the ordinary occurs.

I’m working with several customers who have installed a pre-release version of CHARTrunner-m. The official release is just a few weeks away. In my nearly 25 years at PQ Systems, I’ve worked on many exciting projects, but this is the most innovative project I’ve been a part of.

This technology will boost our customers’ ability to monitor control charts without significant cost increases–something I know will help our customers in these tough economic times! That’s why I wanted to spill the beans here on the blog a little early. The marketing department will put out the official release info soon, so stay tuned to this space!

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Software tip: Lloyd Nelson control limit option

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Steve DaumCustomers often request that we add very specific statistical features to our software products. Before we decide to implement new features, we consider several questions. Is the feature within our realm of core competency? Is the feature related to the types of analysis we already do? Will the feature appeal to a narrow or wide swath of our customers? Is the feature aligned with our mission of providing the simplest solutions that apply practical statistics to improve our customers’ quality?

If the feature makes it though this gauntlet, we study the specifics of the new feature. What algorithms are required? What formulae will be used? How will the feature be tested? Where will the feature be visible in the user interface? This process takes time. We are continuously improving our turn around on feature requests, but many steps exist between getting the idea from the customer into a working product.

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Software tip: Software pricing based on usage

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Steve Daum

For 20+ years we have been selling our software based on a per-workstation license. The idea is that for each computer where the software is installed, the user must purchase one license. This has worked well and we will continue to offer this option into the future.

One of the trends we are watching is software licensing based on how much it is used. There are different usage-based pricing models but most of them tie the price to how many people use the software rather than the number of computers where it is installed. In the past, the technology for managing this type of license added complexity to the installation and deployment experience. With networks, the internet, and new license tools, the usage-based license model is becoming more appealing.

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Software tip: A more informative x-axis label for your control chart

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Steve DaumI spoke with a customer the other day who wanted multiple labels along the x-axis of his control chart. His data set and original chart looked like this:

Did you notice how the x-axis labels contain only the date column? He also wanted the batch number as part of the x-axis label. In the chart definition form, you can select only a single identifier as the label as shown below:

The solution lies on the data definition tab.

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