January 11, 2010 by alisonnelson
We’ve just wrapped up the latest edition of Quality eLine, our monthly e-newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and product tips you can use to enrich your software use. Here is what you’ll see in this month’s issue:
- Losing the blame with cause-and-effect charts
- Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
- Data in everyday life: Record cold temperatures
- Six Sigma and more: Celebrating Russell Ackoff
We’ll be sending the newsletter out tomorrow morning, so if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe now to receive your free copy.
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December 7, 2009 by alisonnelson
We’ve just wrapped up the latest edition of Quality eLine, our monthly e-newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and product tips you can use to enrich your software use. Here is what you’ll see in this month’s issue:
- An improved improvement chart: Minding the straight and narrow
- Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
- Data in everyday life: Christmas trees
We’ll be sending the newsletter out tomorrow morning, so if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe now to receive your free copy.
We’ll be sending it out later today, so if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe now to
receive your free copy.
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December 3, 2009 by stevedaum
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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Posted in CHARTrunner, SQCpack, Software | Leave a Comment »
December 1, 2009 by michaelcleary
If you’re headed to Orlando, Florida next week (Monday, December 7th-Wednesday, December 9th) for the 21st Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care, watch for me in the PQ Systems booth #801 in the exhibit area. I look forward to greeting you myself, showing you some of our newest products, and hearing about what you’re up to with your CQI efforts. I’ll also have demos of our process behavior charting software available.
Seeing familiar faces and making new friends in the quality world are highlights of the conference experience for me. See you there!
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November 10, 2009 by alisonnelson
We’ve just wrapped up the latest edition of Quality eLine, our monthly e-newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and product tips you can use to enrich your software use. Here is what you’ll see in this month’s issue:
- Minding your g’s and t’s: Charting rare events effectively
- Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
- Data in everyday life: States that produce the most turkeys
- Six Sigma and more: David Schwinn advises us to lighten up
We’ll be sending it out later today, so if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe now to receive your free copy.
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October 22, 2009 by matthewsavage
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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October 12, 2009 by alisonnelson
We’ve just wrapped up the latest edition of Quality eLine, our monthly e-newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and product tips you can use to enrich your software use. Here is what you’ll see in this month’s issue:
- Little netbook takes on big job for auto supplier
- Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
- Data in everyday life: Which age group received the most flu shots last year?
- Six Sigma and more: David Schwinn’s thoughts on Ted Kennedy’s death
We’ll be sending it out later today, so if you’re not a subscriber yet, subscribe now to receive your free copy.
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October 9, 2009 by alisonnelson
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October 6, 2009 by stevedaum
Did you know that PQ Systems maintains a robust knowledge base online? It is a repository of common problems and solutions related to using our software and practicing continuous quality improvement. If you are an SQCpack, CHARTrunner, or GAGEpack user, you might just find a solution to your problem here:
http://www.pqsystems.com/kb/activekb/
In a recently-added article, Craig Newland, addresses how to count or group data that has been accumulated during certain periods of time. If you use CHARTrunner, visit: http://www.pqsystems.com/kb/activekb/questions/543/CR%3A+Data+grouping+tardiness to learn how to group your data to make your control chart analysis more telling.
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September 14, 2009 by alisonnelson
Check out our new CHARTrunner ad currently running on page 49 of this month’s issue of Quality Progress.
Thank you to those who served on our advisory panel as we designed this ad. Your input was greatly appreciated.
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