By Dale Farris, Reviews Coordinator
Golden Triangle PC Club
March 2007

Program Overview

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 is a dynamic project management solution that incorporates all the soft tools used in a quality improvement process into one, innovative software package. It helps you easily complete all the tasks related to developing, organizing, and managing your project, and lets you devote more time and energy to what matters most—the improvement process itself.

This latest, newest version 2.2 of Quality Companion is an update to the process improvement software designed to help professionals implement Six Sigma. This 2.2 update to Quality Companion 2 is free to registered users of Quality Companion 2. The program is developed by Minitab, Inc., the same company that develops the successful, well known statistical analysis program, MINITAB.

Quality Companion 2.2 provides expert guidance and practical software tools that simplify every step of a Six Sigma project, from determining its scope to documenting and reporting on its success. The 2.2 update comes in quick response to early customer feedback and introduces dozens of new capabilities and enhancements that improve performance and usability.

This super Quality Companion 2.2 update includes an automatic update service. For customers who already have a full copy of QC 2, they can simply update to 2.2 for free on the Internet.  All you need to do is start Quality Companion 2, select "Check for Updates" under the Help menu, and the update service should take care of the rest automatically. For customers who have not yet invested in the program, they can obtain their full version through the standard Web-based ordering process at www.minitab.com.

New Features in Version 2.2

Analysis Capture Tools

New analysis capture tools: 1 Variance Test; Graphing Y vs. Categorical X; Time Series Plot

Revised analysis capture tools: 1 Proportion; 1-Sample t; 2 Proportions; 2-Sample t; Histogram; One-Way ANOVA

Application Features

Automatically Convert 2.1 projects to version 2.2 projects

Auto Open option automatically opens the last project you saved when you re-open the application

Auto Save option automatically saves your project every X minutes

Auto Backup option creates an additional copy of your project for backup and recovery purposes every time you save

Full support of Internet Explorer 7

Add team members from Vcard files

Use the Install Templates dialog to easily move templates to the proper folders without leaving Quality Companion

Filter templates by categories so they are easier to find

Save as a PNG graphic file type

Click through task panes using Web-style navigation buttons

Select alternative spell check dictionaries

Hide or show the Project Manager and task pane using new toolbar buttons

Brainstorming Tools

Use Auto Pan mode to pan around brainstorm diagrams

Export brainstorm diagrams to Word and PowerPoint

Import images into brainstorm diagrams

Forms

New Forms:
5S Audit; Bar Chart Worksheet; Capability Averaging Report; Data Collection Plan; House of Quality; Meeting Minutes; Pareto Chart Worksheet Raw Data; Pareto Chart Worksheet Summary Data; Path of Steepest Ascent Worksheet; Pugh Matrix; Scatterplot Worksheet; Solution Desirability Matrix; Solution Implementation Checklist

Revised forms:
Capability Rollup Report; C&E Matrix; Funnel Report; Project Financial Analysis Manufacturing; Project Financial Analysis Transactional; Task Progress Report; Tool Progress Report

Filter Form templates by category so they are easier to find

Convert a data table to a ballot and automatically populate the data table with the ballot results

Reduce typing by selecting data from one of three Quick Fill sources: (1) data values already entered in a column, (2) data from a source, for example, X variable names or (3) a list of values the form designer specifies

Resize columns without changing the overall size of the table

Specify the location of legends on graphs

Choose from twenty new formulas, including many financial formulas

Find formulas classified by function

You can now use scientific notation in forms and formulas

Set up data sharing at design time with an improved user interface

Add and delete multiple rows in one step in data tables

Share financial data between forms

Installation

Specify the location of standard folders for both local and admin installs

Presentation Tool

The Presentation tool has been completely redone for 2.2. New features include the ability to:

Draw rectangles, ovals, lines, and by freehand on slides

Format shapes and lines

Add text boxes to slides

Export presentations to PowerPoint with a single click

Choose from nine standard slide types, which can be added with a single click

Find and Replace within a presentation

Check spelling within a presentation

Insert pictures on slides

Save presentations as Web pages

Use Auto Pan mode to pan around a presentation

Use multiple keyboard shortcuts in full screen mode

Process Map Tool

Use Auto Pan mode to pan around process maps

Move and copy X and Y variables from shape-to-shape from within the Process Map tool

Set process data display defaults for new shapes you add to a process map

Edit pictures with enhanced picture-editing capabilities

Move text labels to one of three different locations on a connector (beginning, center, or end)

Importance of Quality Companion 2.2

Quality Companion 2.2 helps companies implement process improvement initiatives by:

 streamlining project workflow and making tasks easier

 guiding Six Sigma Green Belts and Black Belts through their projects from start to finish

 providing linked tools that enhance analysis, reporting, and presentations

 helping Master Black Belts support their teams efficiently

 making it easy for Champions to evaluate projects and report successes

 standardizing projects throughout the organization

At the start of a project, Quality Companion’s Project Roadmap feature lets professionals plan out every phase in detail, then assign built-in “soft” tools to assist with each task. These tools help team members brainstorm, map processes, conduct analyses, complete forms and reports, and more. With Quality Companion’s data-sharing ability, the information they enter in one tool populates the appropriate fields in other tools, with no retyping.

When team members have questions, they can consult the software’s Coach function for guidance about what tool to use and how to use it -- advice developed by Master Black Belts with extensive, real-world deployment experience. Quality Companion also features analysis capture tools that help summarize the results of Six Sigma statistical analyses in a consistent way, making reports easier to follow and providing structure and guidance to novice Minitab users.

Quality Companion includes a tool that lets professionals create and deliver great-looking presentations from inside the application. When the project is concluded, Quality Companion maintains all related documents in one easy-to-manage file, making it simple to archive and painless to review detailed project information at a future date.

Even organizations with established improvement initiatives can benefit from Quality Companion’s abilities. A company’s program may be showing results, but using the right tools expands the range and depth of that success. Quality Companion makes project tasks faster and easier to complete, which means more projects get done thoroughly and efficiently, resulting in greater savings and ultimately higher profits. Companies put tremendous resources into quality improvement, and Quality Companion helps ensure they get the best return on that investment.

Six Sigma is more than statistics. That’s why you need Quality Companion 2.2. It helps you plan, organize, and execute successful projects by:

Streamlining and standardizing project workflow
Guiding Green and Black Belts through tasks
Helping Master Black Belts support teams efficiently
Providing tools that share data and save time
Making it easy to document and report on progress

Use the Roadmap for:

Process Mapping
FMEA
C& E Matrix
Brainstorm/Affinity Diagrams
Consensus Building
Cause and Effect Diagrams

Useful in Any Business

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 is relevant for use in any business, but most especially companies with a commitment to the quality principles American businesses have been integrating into operations for at least the last 25 years. Inside these quality companies, various key staff are providing leadership to their quality program that involves various tools and methodologies, all driven by the constant need to continue improving their products and services, reduce their costs of operation, and increase their operational efficiency.

These quality professionals are the most likely staff who will quickly realize the value of this super collection of tools. Quality professionals constantly strive for efficiency in their projects and they understand what it means to streamline a process, reduce errors, and increase profits. Finding the right tool, or collection of tools is also a never ending search, and Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 will answer this search.

Managing quality improvement projects can be time-consuming and unwieldy. Having to use different applications to map processes, create forms, and organize meetings, examples of just a few of these quality related tasks, can result in an unwieldy collection of different software applications. With the increased need for work teams to share information, this adds another level of complexity when mixing applications that aid in these tasks.

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 is an excellent, cost-effective collection of various tools that will aid all quality professionals as they work on their various quality improvement projects. Quality Companion is a comprehensive software solution that will aid in designing and implementing quality improvement projects with unrivaled efficiency.

Fully customizable, every component of Quality Companion can be modified or created from scratch. Templates are provided for times when customizing is not necessary, so you can begin new projects quickly and effortlessly. You can store project files on a network for easy access and the program behaves like standard Office apps with subsequent users being given the option to open files as read-only.

Backed by Minitab’s exceptional, free technical support and customer service, Quality Companion should be seriously considered by any company with a commitment to the quality process. For process improvement deployments, Quality Companion is also a super complement to MINITAB 14 Statistical Software. Start your project with Quality Companion for the essential soft tools, and then turn to MINITAB for the crucial data analyses, such as Measurement Systems Analysis (Gage R & R), Capability Analysis, and DOE (Design of Experiments). Use both to make any quality initiative more efficient and consistent.

Program Tools

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 contains various different tools for use in optimizing processes, controlling costs, and improving the quality of products.

Managing Six Sigma projects can be cumbersome and inefficient—unless you have the right tools. Quality Companion 2.2 provides organizational power, practical quality improvement tools, and on-demand guidance in a single, easy-to-use software package.

Quality Companion’s suite of interconnected tools were tailor-made to help professionals make Six Sigma projects succeed, whether they’re Green Belts fresh from training or Master Black Belts with years of experience.

Organization

Project Roadmap
Organize projects into phases and create a launch pad for the tools needed for every task. Customize roadmaps for any type of improvement project.

Project Charter
Define and present scope, constraints and assumptions, team members and roles, plans, and other details.

Project Prioritization
Evaluate options and select the project likely to have the most impact.

Data Sharing
Eliminate retyping data by sharing information across project tools—for instance, x's in a Process Map automatically populate your Cause and Effect Matrix.

All-in-One Project File
Keep all project information, even non-Companion documents, in one file, making it a snap to share, review, report, and archive information.

Practical Tools

Process Map
Construct high-level or detailed flow charts that include variables and data.

Cause and Effect Matrix
Determine possible causes of process outcomes, compare their importance, and identify where variation may occur.

Balloting
Easily prioritize ideas, identify problems, and evaluate causes with multivoting tools.

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
Anticipate and quantify the likelihood of problems.

Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer (SIPOC)
Analysis Identify every relevant element of your process and refine the scope of complex projects.

Y Metrics Chart
Measure project progress against its baseline and goals.

Six Sigma Funnel Report
Identify all process inputs (x’s) and explain which are critical, potential, or eliminated.

Capability Roll-up Report
Calculate process capability for outputs across multiple sequential operations, using continuous or discrete data.

Value Stream Map Comparison Visualize the movement of material and information through a process “before and after” a project.

Rolled Throughput Metrics
Assess the probability of completing a process without scrap or rework.

Stakeholder Analysis
Identify all groups and individuals affected by a project.

Brainstorming Tools: Fishbone, CT Tree, Idea Mapping, and Cause and Effect Diagrams
Capture creative ideas during brainstorming sessions and share x's and y's identified during charting with other project tools.

Project Risk Assessment
Lay out the potential costs associated with improving a process.

Financial Analysis
Estimate savings generated by improving a process.

Control Plan Document how to sustain a successful project's benefits.

Presentation Manager
Create dynamic presentations directly in Quality Companion.

Guidance

Coaches
Select and use tools correctly with extensive guidance prepared by Six Sigma experts.

Help and Demos
Detailed online help and animated demos make Quality Companion easy to use.

Analysis Capture
Review and interpret output from Minitab Statistical Software, ensuring the most important information in each analysis is highlighted in project reports.

While some readers may think other software can also support these functions, such as Visio or other drawing packages, Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 is the only application that integrates a very user friendly approach to working with all these tools, while also supporting the important step of integrating the statistical data, something drawing packages just are not capable of supporting. In addition, those who are familiar with Six Sigma, Lean, or other quality improvement concepts and methodologies will also notice how Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 will definitely come in handy in their companies.

Program Value

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 Is completely customizable, from the forms and tools used to the Roadmap itself. Every component can be modified or created from scratch.

Provides templates when customizing isn’t necessary, so new users can begin their projects quickly and effortlessly.

Can be set up on a network drive, allowing all team members to individually access projects.

Saves all sections of a project and any changes that your team makes in one master file, promoting standardization, collaboration and communication.

Allows users to save output in HTML format or copy it into Word or PowerPoint files.

Comes with excellent on-line Help documentation.

Is backed by Minitab’s exceptional, free technical support and customer service.

Basics of Use

When you first open the program, you open a blank project. There are links in the task pane to easily create a project based on a standard template or open a recently used file.

Starting with the existing template is an excellent way to quickly get a handle on how this super program works. The boilerplate concept presents you with key steps in a project. These include the Design phase, the Measure phase, the Analyze phase, the Improve phase, and the Control phase.

In each of these steps the program presents logical sub tasks you would likely follow. For example, in the Design phase you will likely want to complete the C& E Matrix to identify an area of focus for the FMEA, or Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, or to pinpoint the initial factors for a designed experiment. If so, Quality Companion provides you with seamless access to this tool. If you were in a Phase Coach, you select the tool you want and click “Insert Tool.” Alternatively, you can choose New > Form > C & E Matrix from the menu or tool bar.

If you need to brainstorm possible problems with a process, then you choose a brainstorming diagram from the menu (or a Coach). Also, there are now 3 flavors of Brainstorm: Fishbone, CT Tree, and Idea Map

All of the many important quality tools that are designed in Quality Companion are marvelously developed and are cleanly integrated in the program. While other drawing programs may support customized use in order to manually create these different project concepts, only Quality Companion can provide these tools in such an easy to use format, but more importantly, clearly ingrained in the overall improvement project.

For example, if you wanted to create a cause and effect diagram to support work on finding the root cause of a problem, without Quality Companion you would have to work with a separate drawing program and develop this diagram by creating each of the many cause rectangles, then connect the lines of the causes, then create the effect rectangle, and connect it to the causes. Instead, in Quality Companion, when your work team gets to this step in their problem analysis project, there is a menu selection that takes you to the Cause and Effect tool that automates all these steps. What's more, this particular part of the improvement project is integrated with all the other many tools that would likely be used in any improvement project.

If you wish to begin an improvement project without using the existing template, you can start your process by just clicking on the toolbar buttons for all the many tools that are included in the program. This automatically adds this tool to your project, and then you just double click these tools and complete these as you go.

These super handy tools comprise the valuable Roadmap aspect of the program. In addition, you can set up the essential project information by just clicking on the Project Information tab, define the team members by opening the Team Members tab, and use the Action Items tab to manage the tasks assigned to team members, including their name, a deadline and a status field.

Targeted Customers

Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 has wide application in any process in any business. You can use the program to help manage all the various work steps involved in just about any improvement project, and the program will certainly be an important addition to any company with a solid commitment to the improvement concepts. In these quality businesses, there are likely various seeded professionals with the responsibility to facilitate the various quality improvement projects, and these professionals will most definitely want to consider adding Minitab Quality Companion 2.2 to their bag of tricks. With so many powerful features and essential improvement tools built into this program, its price makes adding this program a certainty. In addition, Minitab, Inc. makes available discount pricing for quantity purchasing. I suspect once you see what this program can do, you will likely want to install this vital program on many PCs in your company.

If you are already a MINITAB 15 Statistical Software customer, then you will most assuredly want to add Quality Companion to your collection of quality tools.

Quality Companion is a very effective way to standardize projects, making them easier to manage. A doctor can walk up to any patient's bed and assess their health in 2 to 5 minutes, thanks to standardization of terms, measures, and other information on the patient's chart. Quality Companion does the same with improvement projects. You can quickly assess their status and decide on the next course of action. It's easy to see how projects are progressing and offer guidance to project leaders.

Quality Companion also enables Six Sigma Green Belt candidates to progress with projects more methodically and with less mentoring from their Black Belts. The Project Roadmap feature helps them plan a project and shows them the appropriate tools to use at each phase. The Coach feature lets them get a refresher on tools and techniques without having to meet with a Black Belt by giving an overview, a how-to guide and things to watch out for.

Price

$450 single copy (A bargain for the many powerful tools in the program.)
$400 each for 2-10 copies

Contact the company for further information about multiple user license pricing and the annual use license for networked versions that are annually renewed.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

P-II or equivalent processor
Windows 2000 (SP 3), XP
115MB free hard disk space
256MB RAM (512+MB RAM recommended)
1024 x 768 or higher resolution monitor
IE 6 or IE &
Acrobat Reader 5 or higher

Multi-user licenses only:
Multi-user installations also require Minitab License Manager.

With the power and complexity of this software, and the potential for rather complex files, some customers may wish to work with in this program on a more powerful, "high-end" machine with as fast a processor you can manage, along with as much RAM and free hard disk space you also can manage.

Also note that as of the date of this review, Minitab, Inc. strongly advises that you not run Minitab or Quality Companion on your Vista computer, until the Vista-ready versions of these programs are released. Minitab and Quality Companion have not yet been developed or secured for Windows Vista. Therefore, the company cannot yet guarantee that they will run or install in this configuration. However, upcoming releases will be specifically designed and tested for compatibility with Vista. More information will be posted on the Minitab, Inc. website when these releases are available.

The Vista-capable versions of Minitab and Quality Companion are expected soon. So, if you wish to run Minitab or Quality Companion on a Vista machine, keep checking with Minitab, Inc. regarding the Vista-capable updates to these 2 programs.

Origins of the Word MINITAB

The software was initially developed in 1972 at Pennsylvania State University by three faculty members: Dr. Thomas A. Ryan, Jr., Dr. Barbara F. Ryan, and Dr. Brian L. Joiner. Their goal was to incorporate the use of computers into the teaching of college statistics courses. With MINITAB, computer software could perform all the tedious statistical calculations, rather than students having to do them "by hand" on electronic calculators, thus allowing students to concentrate on learning what really mattered - the statistical concepts.

MINITAB was a smaller, scaled-down version of a package called OMNITAB, that was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). OMNITAB was a high-level spreadsheet for statistical analysis and was developed in the Statistical Engineering Division and was maintained by them until 1986. OMNITAB performed many different statistical analyses, arithmetic, and trigonometric calculations, and matrix and array operations. The software responds to simple instructions and uses reliable computational algorithms.

Originally developed to help professors teach statistics using computers, rather than calculators, MINITAB is now used at 4,000 colleges worldwide. More students have been taught statistics using MINITAB than any other statistical package.

MINITAB has also become the leading industrial software for applying statistical methods to improve the design and manufacture of products. MINITAB is used extensively by such companies as GE, 3M, Ford, General Motors, Toshiba, and DuPont and is recommended to the clients of most major quality improvement consulting organizations.

Minitab operates offices in State College; Coventry, England; and Paris, France.

About Minitab, Inc.

Minitab Inc. creates and markets statistical software that enables those who teach or perform data analysis to obtain accurate, reliable, and easy-to-use solutions.

For thirty years, MINITAB Statistical Software has provided quick, easy, and reliable data analysis solutions for people in both business and academia. From scientists to students, engineers to nurses, MINITAB Statistical Software offers solutions to users at every level.

Originally developed in 1972 to help professors teach basic statistics, MINITAB Statistical Software is now used in more than 4,000 colleges and universities around the world and is referenced in nearly 450 textbooks. Easy to use and easy to learn, MINITAB Statistical Software is the statistical software package professors trust. More students have learned statistics using MINITAB Statistical Software than any other package.

MINITAB Statistical Software has also become widely used in the business world, offering accurate and easy-to-use tools for quality control, DOE, reliability/survival analysis, and general statistics. MINITAB Statistical Software is now the tool of choice for businesses of all sizes and is used in 80 countries throughout the world - from start-ups to the Fortune 500 companies, including Ford Motor Company, 3M, Honeywell International, General Motors, and leading Six Sigma consultants.

Contact Information

Minitab Sales
Minitab, Inc.
Quality Plaza
1829 Pine Hall Road
State College, Pennsylvania 16801
800-488-3555 (US/CAN)
814-238-3280
sales@minitab.com
www.minitab.com