Neil's words remind me of what I read that Deming said one time when asked if he would summarize his message to management: Understand variability. Quesenberry in "SPC Methods for Quality Improvement" says the real purpose of SPC is "to establish when a process can reasonably be considered stable or in control". An unschooled but savvy mechanical engineer told me one time when we were discussing SPC that "the best thing you can do for those machines is to leave them alone". Sorry I don't know of any plant-wide tools to use. As I've suggested to TechNet in the past, look into Quesenberry's Q-statistics for SPC if you are starting from the beginning. Lou Hart -----Original Message----- From: Atkinson, Neil [SMTP:[log in to unmask]] Sent: Friday, December 21, 2001 2:02 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [TN] Favorite SPC tools I would be careful with this one! SPC works well and gives advantages when people get in touch with the data and the process. Software can sometimes become a means to "do SPC" and not to control the process because it can make people feel detached from the data and by doing too much of the work can result in a lack of understanding of variation, and if all a company gets out of an SPC programme is that everyone understands variation, it has been worth the effort! Neil -----Original Message----- From: Guy Ramsey [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 20 December 2001 21:45 Subject: Favorite SPC tools Is anyone out there using a plant wide SPC software tool? _____________________________________________________________________ This message has been checked for all known viruses by Star Internet delivered through the MessageLabs Virus Scanning Service. For further information visit http://www.star.net.uk/stats.asp or alternatively call Star Internet for details on the Virus Scanning Service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt delivery of Technet send the following message: SET Technet NOMAIL Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site (http://www.ipc.org/html/forum.htm) for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.5315 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------