Tips and Techniques for Statistics and Quality Improvement

We all have our favorite tools, tricks, methods and ways for completing, tracking and improving our work. Personally I'm a visual learner, so I’ve always been drawn to process mapping and flowcharts. 

Love it or hate it, brainstorming is something we've all done at some point in our lives. Those sessions may have been disorderly at times with ideas coming from every direction or totally structured with the help of a particular diagram.

Since the late 1960's, Ishikawa diagrams have helped millions of people through the process of brainstorming potential causes of an effect or problem and mapping those relationships.

When the way the world works is constantly changing now more than ever, demand spikes for certain products (think N95 masks, toilet paper and hand sanitizer) and it dwindles or downright disappears for others (how often did you use the word "non-essential" before the past few weeks?). In this business climate, companies need to act quickly to deal with fluctuations in both supply and demand. 

Every March in the United States is Women's History Month. We honor and commemorate women who were pioneering, resilient and influential. As the world addresses a pandemic, there’s no doubt this is very different from prior years.

In that spirit, we're taking time to showcase a few of many women in our field who prevailed in the face of adversity and made a major impact.

Whether you are in spring cleaning mode, finally working on your novel, giving podcasts a try or binging through the Netflix series you just had not gotten around to yet, a lot of us are finding ourselves staying inside lately. We at Minitab are working remotely right now, and we are actually finding there's no better time to teach ourselves a few new things.

It’s hard for Master Black Belt Brian Mapani to contain himself when he introduces his company and how he found the ingredients for successful continuous improvement. It’s understandable too. They saved $35 million by making a $1 million investment into their Lean Six Sigma program.

This Saturday is Leap Day, so some lucky 39-year-olds on the verge of 40 get to say they're only 10! What's the easiest way to determine the probability of being born on a certain day, like February 29? It's to assume every day of the year has an equal probability of being a birthday. But ... no surprise here ... the numbers actually disagree! 

Here are some of the cute dogs in our Minitab team; pictured above from left to right is Archer, Jake, Archie, Reed, Petey and Rookie. Picture below is Birdie and King.It's Valentine's Day! Whether you're single, in a relationship, married, or something in between, Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate and share messages of affection and love with partners, family, friends and pets. And with the average for spending...

Histograms are great for summarizing several statistics. But whether you have enabled the Data Analysis Toolpak or you’re forging a path of formulas (COUNTIFs, AVERAGEs and STDEVs oh my!), creating a histogram in Excel isn’t always that great. We have developed Minitab Statistical Software to be your go-to histogram maker.

Let’s look at three ways you can do more with histograms in Minitab.

Have you ever heard of an Alligator Pear? If not, don't worry. You're not alone! Surprisingly, it's another name for an avocado.

As trendy as avocados have become lately, they have been around and used in popular dishes around the world for hundreds of years. Guacamole, for example, was created by the Aztecs and dates back to some time between the 14th and 16th centuries! As this delicious green dip and other...