Product News: Minitab's Quality Companion Software Adds Value Stream Mapping

(Mnitab: State College, PA)-- Minitab Inc. has released Quality Companion 3.2, an update to its software for managing and executing quality improvement projects.

This update introduces new functionality, including a powerful tool for value stream mapping (VSM), a primary technique used in lean Six Sigma initiatives. A free, 30-day trial version is available at www.QualityCompanion.com [1]. The update is free to registered users of Quality Companion 3.

VSM helps businesses define the steps required to produce a product or service that meets customer expectations, find improvement opportunities, and pinpoint sources of waste. Quality Companion's VSM tool makes it easy to track important variables such as inventory, takt time, and cycle time, among others, to help improve manufacturing, supply chain, service-related, health care, software development, or product development processes.

Quality Companion by Minitab is designed to manage improvement projects from start to finish, and has been embraced by organizations as diverse as Xerox, the U.S. Postal Service, and BHP Billiton.

Quality Companion's Project Roadmap helps plot a clear course of action to execute quality improvement projects. Adding Companion's built-in "soft" tools, such as process mapping, brainstorming, and reporting, creates a detailed plan for the entire project--and the means to complete each step.

Quality Companion also includes more than 100 form templates, including C&E Matrix, FMEA, and Project Charter, all of which are easily customized to fit any organization. Quality Companion even offers on-demand guidance, with built-in coaches that give expert advice from experienced lean Six Sigma professionals.

When a project ends, Companion maintains the entire project in one easy-to-manage file, making it simple to archive and review in the future.

Quality Companion 3.2 also integrates with latest release of the Quality Companion Dashboard, a utility that aggregates and displays details of all projects in a single view to help you evaluate your progress and success, and can serve as a launch pad for projects.

The Dashboard is free, so executives and others who don't use Quality Companion can use it to monitor the progress of their organization's entire improvement program. Colleagues who don't use Companion can also review projects with the free Quality Companion Viewer, which provides read-only access to project files.