Part of my formula for being father of the year is to mix in an iPad and YouTube for “educational programming,” all in the interest of “teaching” my children to keep busy and let dad do important things like write blogs for Minitab. As a result, I happen to have a strong working knowledge of various versions of different songs like “Wheels on the Bus”, “Baby Shark”, and my personal favorite “The Shapes Song.”
Until recently, this song described many of the shapes in Minitab Workspace, but with the latest launch of the Minitab Solution Center, Minitab has added a library of shapes to rival the likes of Visio, making it not only a best-in-class problem-solving solution, but also top of the line for basic diagramming.
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The Classics: Oldies But Still High “Quality”
In keeping with my musical themes, the new Minitab Solution Center still offers “The Beatles” of shapes for quality and continuous improvement, like shapes for Value Stream Maps, Total Quality Management, Fault Tree Analysis and more basic geometric shapes, arrows, and new call-outs. Speaking of classics, can you name the movie I drew?
Different Strokes for Different Folks
While Workspace does not have a native shape for Gary Coleman (Rest in Peace), it now has specific shapes for different types of job roles and functions, enabling better communication of process improvement across an organization. For all of you IT professionals that are already using our IT module, there are now network diagramming tools and software-related icons to help you map out your next project. For all the healthcare folks out there, you can find your own specific symbols to better diagram improvement opportunities. Can you guess what these healthcare symbols represent?
Building a process map for a lean six sigma project? We have new icons built for you, too. Can you guess what type of waste the diagrams below represent?
Conclusions and Answer Key
As my wife often reminds me, just because I think my jokes are either funny or make sense, it doesn’t mean that others do, too! For those keeping track at home, the classic movie I drew is Planes, Trains & Automobiles and the healthcare icons are ambulance, hospital, doctor, and electrocardiogram. The types of waste are motion, waiting, inventory, and overproduction.
Enjoy the new shapes and make solving problems even easier with diagrams that can be easily shared and identified.
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