Archive for the ‘CHARTrunner’ Category
April 15, 2010
If you’ve forgotten what control charts are and why they’re important, this three-minute video will remind you how this critical tool can help you demonstrate proof of quality performance, whether you produce a service or a product.
In a heartbeat, you’ll understand the difference between special cause variation and common cause variation—and you’ll learn what to do about it and how data speaks to you about managing your processes.
You may want to show this short, just-released, snappy video to your boss:
http://www.youtube.com/pqsystems
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December 3, 2009
A customer recently asked one of our support representatives the following questions: What is the difference between a run chart and a control chart? And when should I use one vs. the other? These are great questions because they allow us to highlight some of the benefits of control charts.
When you create any chart, you are typically trying to answer a question. For example, you might be asking, “Has my process improved?” or, “Has my process gotten worse?” You might be asking, “How is the process running today compared to yesterday?” Before you decide on using a run chart or a control chart, consider the type of question you want to answer.
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October 22, 2009
If you have worked with count charts with large denominators, you have probably seen control limits that seem too narrow to be of much value. The p-chart is one of the attributes charts with this flaw.
A p-chart counts two things: 1) the number of non-conforming items (the numerator) and 2) the number of items inspected (the denominator). If you look at the glass half-full rather than half-empty, you might count the number of conforming items (rather than non-conforming). In either case, when the denominator is large, a problem may be present.
Consider the following chart which shows a p-chart from a plastic shopping bag manufacturer.
This chart measures the percent of plastic bags that failed a particular test. The bag manufacturer averages about 20,000 bags inspected in each sample and about 600 failures. As you can tell by looking at this chart, the limits seem too tight to be useful. The control limits are considered to be overly-dispersed.
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August 4, 2009
Among our healthcare customers we find substantial use of Microsoft Excel. A recent survey of CHARTrunner customers found that 68% of them use data in Excel to produce their SPC charts and other analysis related to quality improvement. Excel is powerful and flexible and well suited to this job. However, this power can lead to complicated worksheets that are difficult to use and even more difficult to maintain. Once designed and deployed, a spreadsheet template may be in use for several years. Who will be around to debug an error or correct a formula that is discovered a year later?
To improve the situation requires well designed spreadsheets. Today, spreadsheets are so easy to setup and start to use – that we tend to gloss over using a design process to get started. Here are some tips to think about as you design your next quality improvement spreadsheet:
- Decide the primary purpose of the spreadsheet
- Make the primary purpose easy to accomplish
- Use the simplest possible sheet that accomplishes the purpose
- Don’t create future work for yourself
- Keep the data “pure”
- Be consistent among your sheets
- Favor traditional arrangements over weird arrangements
- Use a “notes” worksheet to document complex sheets
For a more detailed look at these tips see the following article in the PQ Systems knowledge base:
http://www.pqsystems.com/kb/activekb/questions/541/Excel+tips
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July 6, 2009
It may seem arcane to some folks – but I enjoy a good query challenge. Recently, a customer needed help with a query to aggregate raw data into a useful form for charting. Since I’ve helped several customer do almost the same thing, I decided to write a short article for our Knowledge Base. Here is the link:
http://www.pqsystems.com/kb/activekb/questions/540/A+simple+query+pattern+for+summarizing+raw+data
If you want to chart data where several rows get summarized for each data point – this article contains example SQL queries. These make good patterns for solving a large class of data summery problems. Don’t let the SQL queries intimidate you – it is pretty simple once you see a few examples. The article includes a download containing example data and example CHARTrunner charts.
Happy querying!
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June 10, 2009
Every now and then I’m complimented on the way my charts look. I’m not going to give myself all the credit. I mainly give the credit to the CHARTrunner and its designers. Each month, I create a chart for our monthly newsletter, Quality eLine. I have found myself utilizing CHARTrunner’s chart style options more and more. I would like to go through some of the advantages that I have found.
A few benefits of chart styles include:
- Helps produce consistent charts each time they are drawn;
- Allows you to assign fonts to different areas on the chart;
- Has many options for color management;
- Provides options for other various styles like line styles and data marker styles;
- Properly used, it can make charts easier to read;
- And there is no limit to the number of styles (each one is a file ending in .csc).
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June 1, 2009
We 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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April 13, 2009
I recently returned from training a hospital that has been using CHARTrunner for a number of months. One individual, I’ll call her Rita, presents her quality improvement charts every month in a quality meeting with her managers. She has 22 charts and wanted an easier way to automate the process of getting ready for this monthly presentation.
Her current process is to display the chart, copy it to the Windows Clipboard, go to PowerPoint, paste the chart, resize the chart, and then repeat this for all of her charts. I feel Rita’s pain. The process is time consuming and error-prone.
The good news is that there is an easier way! We automated this process to the point that Rita never needs to launch CHARTrunner. Instead she clicks on a desktop icon each month that launches a command line parameter to update her 22 charts in her PowerPoint presentation. Two clicks accomplishes what previously took her 2 full days. The custom application we developed for Rita saves her 2 days of work each month! I have set this up for many organizations, and I’d like the opportunity to do the same for you.
If you are interested in learning more about a system that automates the process of getting ready for your recurring meetings, let’s talk.
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March 27, 2009
Customers 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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February 27, 2009
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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