Providing an Aggregate View of Six Sigma Projects

(Minitab Inc.: State College, Pennsylvania) -- Minitab Inc. has released the Quality Companion Dashboard, a tool for users of Quality Companion by Minitab. The Dashboard is a complimentary utility that aggregates project data and lets Six Sigma professionals, managers, and stakeholders view the progress of multiple projects simultaneously.
Minitab has also released Quality Companion 2.4, the latest update to the company’s process improvement software. The update is free to registered Quality Companion 2 users. A corresponding update to the free Quality Companion Viewer, which lets users share the information in a Quality Companion project file with anyone, also is available.

“When a company has dozens or even hundreds of projects, leaders need a way to see what’s happening without opening every project file,” says Cate Twohill, product marketing manager. “We created the Dashboard to help stakeholders see, at a glance, how all of those projects are progressing.”
 
The Dashboard gathers and summarizes information from individual Quality Companion project files so that Master Black Belts, Champions, and stakeholders can assess the status of each project in a single view. By applying easy-to-use filters to the summary, leaders can answer questions such as:

• Which projects are ahead of or behind schedule?
• How much money has the deployment saved?
• How are all of an individual’s projects doing?

“The Dashboard makes this very easy to do,” Twohill says. “No customization or additional data entry is necessary. You just open the application, point to where your Quality Companion project files are saved, and you’ll quickly see a summarized list with essential data from each project.  Open a specific project from within the Dashboard for greater detail.”

Quality Companion 2.4 supports every employee involved in a company’s Six Sigma program. Green Belts and Black Belts can use the Project Roadmap to plan their entire project. Master Black Belts can count on the coach feature to give their team expert guidance on which tools to select and how to use them at every step. Champions and other executives can rely on Quality Companion to help them standardize and evaluate projects and report on their successes.

The Quality Companion Dashboard and Viewer applications are available for free download at www.qualitycompanion.com.

Minitab can be found on the web at www.minitab.com.

About The Author

Minitab Inc.

Minitab Inc. develops statistical analysis and process improvement software for academic and commercial users. Minitab Statistical Software, a data analysis tool for businesses, has been used to implement virtually every major Six Sigma quality improvement initiative, and to teach statistics in more than 4,000 colleges and universities worldwide. Quality Companion is used to plan and execute Six Sigma projects. Use the subscription-based online learning course, Quality Trainer, to learn or refresh your knowledge and to access quality statistics expertise anytime. Interactive lessons based on real problems make concepts easy to retain.