Hi Ingemar,
Obviously it takes interested and concerned operators to do just about anything in manufacturing but that fact doesn't eliminate the benefits of a functional SPC program.  I worked with "bogus" SPC programs for years in various places and agree that many times companies
can get bogged down in the intellectual side of it (or do it to pacify customers).  But I was once part of a place that set up a SPC program for automatically plotting chemical analysis, allowing (forcing) the Lab Tech's to review the plotted chart prior to proceding on to another analysis.  This system, like many like it, trained as it controlled.  The program was semi-automatic in that it flagged trends, plotted Cpk and so on, then forced the operator to react.
This system was central to the manual charts dealing with output inidcators.  When compared with the input factors the program allowed some rare glimpses into true process control.  It showed reactions (measured as the output)and allowed you to easily scan for input causes. It beat waiting for scrap to generate before looking for the root causes.

I'm a big fan of SPC and believe that when engineers get behind it and find ways to make it work then they will have done a great service for their company.  Too many times engineers make up their minds that SPC won't help them and that's that - they'll never truly get behind it.  Sometimes they're right, as it isn't for all processes.  But usually they're wrong.  For most processes there are SPC features that will benefit beyond the cost to maintain it.

Clearly process knowledge is important.  No amount of SPC can take the place of that.  But together they're even better.

Mark Mazzoli

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