Tips and Techniques for Statistics and Quality Improvement

Do you ever find yourself struggling to clean and manipulate data for analysis, sometimes spending a lot of time before you even bring the data into Minitab? Well, Minitab has everything you need to manage, clean and manipulate data. Sometimes you just need to know where the right tools are. In this post, I'll give you 5 quick tips for cleaning up your data in Minitab.

Any project requires clear management and leadership. Successful projects don’t just happen. Even with the best of teams, a clear project scope, objectives and roles need to be defined for a team to launch a successful project.

Whether you're new to project management or an old pro, project charters are tremendously helpful to organize projects and keep everyone on track.

Minitab’s Python connectivity feature allows users to run open-source Python scripts from within the Minitab interface and displays the results in Minitab’s output pane. Connectivity with Python means that custom analysis or graphs that are not already available in Minitab’s menus are only a few clicks away. And best of all, you don’t need to be a Python programmer to set this up.

Technology continuously makes our lives easier and allows many of us to stay connected to others and even work remotely during COVID-19. It’s no wonder that companies and instructors everywhere have been revamping education to include digital components in their learning programs. This approach, called blended learning, combines traditional face-to-face training led by expert instructors, with e-learning modules,...

Have you ever been in a meeting where someone presented the results of a data analysis that you didn’t completely understand, but you didn’t ask questions because everyone else in the meeting seemed to get it? If your answer is yes, you might consider spending some time improving your data literacy.

The healthcare industry has faced enormous challenges in 2020, namely battling the novel coronavirus COVID-19. This industry is made of professionals known for their resiliency, empathy, long hours of hard work and optimism. Given all they do to help others, healthcare workers especially deserve help making their jobs and saving lives easier. One small way Minitab can specifically help them is with value stream...

Control charts are specialized time series plots that help you determine if a process is in statistical control. Although some of the most widely used ones like Xbar-R and Individuals charts are great at detecting relatively large shifts in the process (1.5+ sigma shifts), you will need something different for smaller shifts. Enter the Exponentially Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) chart.

You’ve seen them before. You might have even used them. Harvey balls are symbols to visually communicate qualitative information like project status, product features and employee performance. Unfortunately, making the symbols can be time-consuming in different programs. Thankfully, an easy-to-use and versatile Harvey Balls matrix is now available in Minitab Workspace and Companion by Minitab.

If you’ve ever wished for an easy way to add a custom analysis to Minitab’s interface, read on! Minitab’s new Python integration feature allows an avenue for easily running custom Python code via a button in the Minitab interface. If you’re not a programmer, fear not! I’m no programmer myself, so if I can do this, you can too.

Data analysts don’t count sheep at night. We look for a nice, bell-shaped curve in their arc as they leap over the fence. That’s normal distribution, and it’s a starting point to understanding one of the most important concepts in statistical analysis: the central limit theorem.