SPC software Evaluation and Recommendations - Small Company

I have read many of the recommendations on this site for SPC software. Thanks BTW! I have tried the trials of NWA Quality Analyst and InfinityQS and looked at Minitab. We are a very small company and for what I need to do it seems a waste to purchase such expensive software. We have shops that make parts for us according to our drawings. My company inspects the incoming parts using CMM and other metrology tools. Our major customer is requiring us to monitor the tolerances of the parts we dimension. Our vendors don't use any statistics. So, it is really pretty much an activity to statisfy our customer. I am looking for a very simple software to do this. I am not computer proficient and my inspectors even less. I would like to make this as simple for them as possible. I could do more, like gage R&R or measure cpk with it if I had it. I am looking for an opinion if one of these software packages is better than the other (from what I see they are comparable) and if there is something better for my simple needs.

Re: SPC software evaluation

Thanks. I actually did check out a couple of the Excel programs. I think one was $159. It appeared complicated to set up for our use. We would want to do this routinely for all our parts. We probably have 1000 parts in our system. Some have over 85 dimensions. I need to have it integrate with our data collection somehow. Maybe an Excel program could? If it was that easy I am not sure it would be that cheap.

Re: SPC software evaluation

OK your a small company but the many parts and characteristics make it complex. If you were only looking a few parts or characteristics, then I would suggest EXCEL...but the situtaion you describe requires an integrated data collection and chart organization structure. I would recommend Infinity QS or NWA. Minitab will require a lot of custom programming on your part and is not as intuitive....sorry. are you sure your customer is requiring SPC???? Can you charge them for this?

Re: SPC software evaluation

That is exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks a lot. I suspected I would need more than Excel but I just didn't know. I appreciate the advice about Minitab.

Re: SPC software evaluation

Make sure your CMM doesn't already have an SPC software with it. Many come with effective packages included.

Re: SPC software evaluation

jwmanager said:

My company inspects the incoming parts using CMM and other metrology tools. Our major customer is requiring us to monitor the tolerances of the parts we dimension....So, it is really pretty much an activity to statisfy our customer. I am looking for a very simple software to do this.

Click to expand...

You need the only the simplest software, in that what you are doing is taking measurements of randomized lots of product - nowhere near a representation of process control. You have no idea what the original distribution was, and your vendors apparently do not either. You can not determine a valid Cpk with this data, so I hope your customers are not requiring it. So, invest as little as possible in such nonsense. Run X hi/lo-R charts to visually capture the lot width variation should suffice. I would not bother with X bar-R chart for this type of report card charting.

My company has just been through the process of selecting new software for statistical analysis. Most of the standard packages, Minitab, SPSS and others are costed at about $1500 and up. There are others that are cheaper, piggybacking on Excel, but that wasn't an alternative that I was happy with.

What we ended up going with was R. It's open source, so it's zero cost to purchase. However, it is NOT USER FRIENDLY. At least not at first glance. It's a command line language, something like the using the old DOS commands. It takes a lot of time to learn, and getting data into it is, well I've found it time-consuming. Having said that, once everything is set up, it's incredibly powerful. The program can import packages that are designed to run all sorts of statistical analyses. And the charting capabilities are particularly strong. R is now the thing to be using in universities for research statistics.

So if your boss will not accept the spending of any money at all, but you need some kind of tool, and you are OK with spending the time to learn, I'd strongly recommend having a look at R.

I do my own formulaes in Excel (no add-ons) and its a pretty complicated site but we have no problems. See http://www.efcog.org/wg/esh_es/Statistical_Process_Control/ for open domain information on using Excel to make SPC charts.

It all depends on what you want. First question is if you want to apply SPC real time on the shop floor or you simply want to analyze data afterwards using a control chart
In the first case you need a SPC system based on a real time database, in the second situation you can work with an Excel solution or Minitab

If you want to use real time SPC then the question is do you want to integrate SPC with ERP/FMEA/OEE/CAPA/Gage Management or do you want to use it completely stand-alone
Integration with gages, CMM's, PLC's migth also be a question but all modern SPC packages (First page in Google) are capable of handling that

training and support against a reasonable price and experience in the type of industry might also be important

Prices range for real time SPC system range from 299US $ to more than 100.000 US $ and a higher price does not neccesarily mean a better product

Marc Schaeffers

Disclaimer: I work for Sunday Business Systems.

Sunday Business Systems (see our ad to the left) has a very simple SPC package that sounds like it may fit the users needs.

SPC Keeper is a simple, affordable data repository for all types of attribute data from the factory floor. Validate data against control limits and spec limits. Optionally, review simple Statistical Process Control charts for real time SPC.