Minitab

Minitab is a statistical software, with the help of statistical data can be analyzed and displayed in various diagrams.

Minitab was developed in 1972 at Pennsylvania State University as a light version of the statistical analysis software OMNITAB the National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST) and is used as a statistical tool in numerous American universities and colleges. Since 1983, Minitab is distributed by Minitab Inc.. This company is headquartered at the State College, Pennsylvania, and maintains subsidiaries in Coventry, England ( Minitab Ltd.. ) And Paris, France ( Minitab SARL).

Six Sigma and Minitab

Six Sigma is a management methodology that was developed in the 1980s at Motorola as a new procedure for standardized quality control; their goal is to achieve zero -defect quality (associated with the highest customer satisfaction) in all areas of a company. In the improvement of processes used is that the DMAIC scheme: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve ( Improve ) and rules ( Control).

Minitab offers pre-built functions for the various phases of the project, which can be operated even by novice users without requiring them to dominate the statistical background of the methods. For DoEs, an important part of the Measure and Analyze phase, for example, experimental designs can be both designed and evaluated semi-automatically. Also, various types of control charts are implemented as typical of the Control phase tool.

Minitab is used in other quality improvement projects such as " Kaizen " and " Triz ".

Strengths and weaknesses of Minitab

Minitab is less comfortable to use than common spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel. Formulas can not be typed as z directly into a cell, but must be entered via a selectable menu calculation tool. The software is consistently focused on the arrangement of data in columns, there are only a few lines and single cell functions. Individual modules of the program use different input conventions. For example, strings must be partly simple and partly with double quotes in the computing function. The strong integration of complex functions " to a mouse click " simplified standardized evaluations, but at the same time restricts the flexibility to creating individual graphics. The software contains, in addition to the help function in the operation of the program is explained, an extensive explanation of the implemented statistical tools.