In December, we asked you to tell us your favorite among four international charity groups. Our donation to these groups will be proportionate to the interest you have expressed. Thanks for your responses! Here are the results:
Charity challenge results
February 8, 2011Data in everyday life: Top Super Bowl scores charted
February 4, 2011High scores usually mean exciting games. What are the highest-scoring games in Super Bowl history? See this chart.
An invitation to share: Help us support world charities
December 15, 2010We invite you to help us celebrate this holiday season and wind up the final days of 2010 by voting for one of four international charitable organizations listed below. We will count the votes, and PQ Systems will make donations to these organizations, based on the proportions of those voting for each charity.
Click here to vote! – Please submit your vote by December 29.
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is an impartial, neutral and independent organization whose exclusively humanitarian mission is to protect the lives and dignity of victims of armed conflict and other situations of violence and to provide them with assistance.
Heifer International
Heifer International is a global nonprofit with a proven solution to ending hunger and poverty in a sustainable way. Heifer helps empower millions of families to lift them out of poverty and hunger to self-reliance through gifts of livestock, seeds and trees, and extensive training, which provide a multiplying source of food and income.
Doctors without Borders
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is an international medical humanitarian organization created by doctors and journalists in France in 1971. Today, MSF provides aid in nearly 60 countries to people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe, primarily due to armed conflict, epidemics, malnutrition, exclusion from health care, or natural disasters. MSF provides independent, impartial assistance to those most in need. MSF reserves the right to speak out to bring attention to neglected crises, to challenge inadequacies or abuse of the aid system, and to advocate for improved medical treatments and protocols. In 1999, MSF received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Oxfam International
Oxfam is an international confederation of 14 organizations working together in 99 countries and with partners and allies around the world to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice. They work directly with communities and seek to influence the powerful to ensure that poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them.
Hurray! World Quality Month is here!
November 1, 2010Remember National Quality Month? October was at one time designated in this way, to call attention to improvement of products and processes across the nation. PQ Systems celebrated at that time with an international quality conference, a giant banner posted across the front of our building, and ongoing articulation of our quality mission. World Quality Day was at that time celebrated in November.
The two have now combined, emphasizing the global realities of quality and its importance in an increasingly global trade system. November is the time to bring attention to the impact that attention to quality continues to have in every part of the world. In more sober economic times than those of past celebrations, banners and meetings may no longer be part of the mix, but we continue to expand the reach of our products and services that help organizations around the world demonstrate proof of their own quality.
To see how World Quality Month is being observed around the world, go to the ASQ blog: http://asq.org/blog
What are you doing to call attention to the quality of your products and processes?
Share your charting story, create a charting innovation
October 20, 2010
You are looking at a chart. You are going through an analysis and interpretation process. What data is being represented? How important is the data? Does the chart signal any changes? Does the chart show anything that is “bad” or “good?” Does the chart offer proof of quality?
Ultimately, you want to answer the question: is any action required based on what I see?
Now, think about the workflow leading up to this. How did the chart get created? How was the data gathered? What part of the process was difficult or error prone? Would it have been possible for you to miss this chart among your other tasks?
At PQ we’ve been pondering questions like these for more than twenty years. We are working hard on our products and services to reduce friction in your quality improvement processes. If you have a charting story to tell, please share it with us; who knows, it may lead to the next great quality improvement solution.
GAGEmail: The secret treat included with GAGEpack
October 13, 2010
When I do a product demonstration of GAGEpack and I arrive at the segment where I talk about GAGEmail, I often find myself introducing it by saying, “I wish more people knew about this.” In fact, it is not uncommon for me to come across veteran GAGEpack users who are unaware that they have a program like GAGEmail at their disposal.
GAGEmail is a tiny program designed to run in the background and continuously scan GAGEpack databases to watch for upcoming gage servicing events. When it finds an event, it will e-mail a reminder to the person responsible for that gage. This proactive approach to calibration reminders makes GAGEmail unique among GAGEpack‘s notification methods. Normally, users must remember to remind themselves of upcoming events by checking their reports or filtered gage lists. With GAGEmail, the reminder is entirely automated.
In addition to being automated, these reminders are also quite flexible. The user can specify which types of events trigger e-mails, how far in advance of the event they should be sent, who should receive them, and what they should say.
The reason I wish more people knew about GAGEmail is because it does not cost anything extra to use; GAGEmail is included with every license of GAGEpack purchased since version 8.5. In order to use it, customers simply need to install it using their GAGEpack disk or download it directly from the GAGEpack page on our website.
As always, I am available to offer assistance with setting up GAGEmail. You can call me at 800-777-5060, e-mail me at support@pqsystems.com, or leave questions for me below.
Upcoming articles in this month’s Quality eLine
October 11, 2010
Quality eLine is our monthly newsletter that gives you industry news, case studies, and information about product enhancements and tips to enhance your software use. Here is what you’ll find in this month’s issue:
- Calibration records easier to manage with the new GAGEpack release
- Quality Quiz: Another quiz from Professor Cleary—and last month’s winners!
- Data in everyday life: World Food Day—October 16
- Six Sigma and more: Share your ideas
Not a subscriber yet? Subscribe now to receive your free copy.
Help us welcome the new addition to the GAGEpack family
September 22, 2010
We celebrated the release of GAGEpack 9.0, the newest member of the PQ software family, this week. As the youngest child, it comes from good stock—GAGEpack has been known and loved by customers since the release of the first version more than 20 years ago.
Infant that it is, it has more grown-up features than you can shake a stick at, and will serve a highly mature audience of calibration professionals with new ways of assuring accuracy in records and proof of efficiency. But I still feel like a new, proud father as I look at the screen shots with their clarity and ease of use.
I hope you’ll have a chance to hold the baby…and take it for a free ride!
Concurrent-user licensing or not concurrent-user licensing? That is the question!
August 17, 2010
Last year we deployed a new licensing option for all three of our major software applications. Up until that point, our customers licensed the software on a “per-computer” basis, meaning every computer terminal being used to run the program required its own unique license. As the software industry shifted towards enterprise and network licensing options, we received a steady stream of requests for more flexible “roaming” licenses. Thus, the concurrent-user license was born.
A concurrent-user license allows an organization to install our software on an unlimited number of computers on the same network, giving them the freedom to put these applications into the hands of any/all of their employees without the cost and hassle of managing individual licenses. The only restriction in the concurrent model is the number of people who can access the program simultaneously; when the sixth person attempts to log into a five-user license, they will get a message saying that the server is full.
We still offer the per-computer licenses, but the concurrent-user licenses have been steadily growing in popularity since they were launched. Consequently, I routinely find myself answering the question “Should I switch to a concurrent-user license?” My response is always the same: “It depends.”
The value of a concurrent-user license versus the traditional per-computer license depends heavily on what sort of traffic to the program is anticipated. If you expect infrequent and fairly brief access from many computer terminals, a concurrent-user license would meet your needs for a fraction of what it would cost to license all of those terminals individually. On the other hand, if you have only a few terminals that need near-constant access to the program, it would likely be more cost effective to invest in per-computer licenses. In both scenarios, both licensing options could be applied to grant the required access, but selecting the appropriate license would save a pretty penny.
Please feel free to contact your account representative if you have questions about your specific application or contact me via e-mail at davids@pqsystems.com. We would be happy to discuss different licensing options with you.
Gage R&R study questions answered
August 4, 2010
We frequently entertain questions about MSA and specifically, gage R&R. Below are two questions we recently received:
Question #1: “What are the requirements for the parts chosen in a study? Do the parts have to have the same specification?”
Answer: The parts selected should be representative of the process variation that is producing them. This implies that selecting 10 consecutive pieces (parts) is not as good as using 10 parts obtained throughout the day or week. Part of what you are trying to do with an R&R study is determine whether your measurement system is capable of distinguishing parts made on the same process to the same specification. In summary, you want to select the parts in a way that represents the minimum sized part, the maximum sized part and those in between. If the selected parts have different specifications, they are different by design, not by random variation.
Question #2: “Results can be calculated in several ways: using study parameters, specifications and others. Which is most acceptable for gage R&R?”
Answer: The industry trend is to use study/process parameters, however, how you calculate the results of a gage R&R study depends on the purpose for doing the study. Before the study begins, you should decide what the primary purpose for conducting the study is. If you are trying to control your process, you need to be able to detect changes in the process. To do this, you should use study parameters or process parameters. If your focus is being able to compare a part to specifications, then you should use the specification method. Using the specification method suggests that you are trying to prove that your measurement system can distinguish between good and bad parts.
If you have any other questions or concerns about MSA or gage R&R, please contact us at support@pqsystems.com or by phone at 800-777-5060 or just post them below.
