The Data Heads

Quality Magazine picked up my blog post on the Voice of the Process loop. I’m really interested in your comments on the questions posed in the post, either at the Quality Mag site, or here.

For the last 18 months we’ve been working on the latest release of GainSeeker Suite, Version 8. We released it last week and you can read all about it here.

I can’t decide which is the coolest feature in the release: the new Dynamic Reports module or .Launch.

In beta testing, Dynamic Reports has proven to be very powerful and very cool.  Every time somebody has come up with a request for some special report I think “No way. That’s just too much to hope for…”

Then someone digs into it a little bit and the next thing I know we have a working solution that goes beyond my wildest imagination. I’ll be publishing a case study in the next few days to show you what I mean.

But .Launch (”dot launch”) … what a little sweetheart of an application. There aren’t any fancy stats or charts, and it doesn’t integrate with your ERP system. But it puts a really nice UI on all the command line parameters that our geeks have built into system that nobody has time to figure out. If you want to launch a specific desktop in Charts & Reports, with a specific user name (and not have to type in the password everytime), .Launch can take care of it. Plus you can launch any other application on your system and organize all of them in Groups.

I’ll be using .Launch to organize presentations. In my world, I’m often flipping between a PowerPoint slide show (maybe two or three different files), and Excel spreadsheet, and several GainSeeker Suite modules. .Launch gives me a single place to drop all those shortcuts. It significantly unclutters my desktop.

So for raw power, I vote for Dynamic Reports. But for the module that I’ll be using on a daily basis to make life more convenient, it’s .Launch all the way.

We put together a micro-site on GainSeeker Suite V8. Take a look and let us know which features you’re most happy to see added. Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

One of the really important aspects of the Data Cost / Value Matrix is how reducing the cost of data can help you get more value from data.

This came up again the other day as we were debriefing following a recent deployment for a new customer. This customer is about to undergo a major cultural transformation because we helped them automate real-time data collection and analysis. In the process, they will shift from a Product Control to a Process Control way of looking at the world. Ultimately this will reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction, and (we hope) drive new business.

This customer makes electronic devices. Their products are complex pieces of equipment, and at a couple places on the production line, the various component parts and the final assembly pass through an automated test stand. This test stand runs the unit though dozens - even hundreds of electrical tests. A unit has to pass all of those tests to be released to their customer.

Sounds like a winner, right? One hundred percent inspection. Nothing bad ever escapes to the end user. And we have the data to prove it. Boy, do we have data. Entire databases of rows and columns of numbers. Every one of them in spec.

Except it doesn’t work that way. Some units pass all the tests with flying colors - and then fail out of the box or early in the life of the product. Here is what the data for one test parameter looks like plotted on a histogram (this isn’t actually the customer’s data - it’s just representative):

In this example, everything is well within spec - it should all be good.

When you look at this data in time series on a control chart it looks very different:

Viewed this way, this data tells a completely different story. If you look closely you can see a couple of signals that the process is unstable, even though everything meets spec. In a complex environment with dozens of critical - and interconnected - variables, these unstable values often directly correlate to the early life and out of the box failures.

Learning to rely on the control chart is the shift from Product Control to Process Control. It is often a tough shift to make - especially when everything is in spec.

What makes it even harder, however, is the sheer volume of data they need to sift through to find those signals. Hundreds of test parameters, hundreds of units tested every day. Automation is the only way you can keep up with the data. By automating the data collection and analysis process you can empower people to make that cultural change.

What about you? How can reducing data costs make it easier to get more value from your data? Use the ShareThis button below to mark this page, or leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

I’m tickled that The Elkhart Truth picked up our story about our tree planting project today. With Arbor Day coming up this Friday they devoted part of a page to local efforts to support trees, and our story was the lead.

When I announced the tree project in this space, I mentioned that I would come back later and share another baby step we’re taking to reduce our carbon footprint. Compared to all those trees, this one seemed small - almost trivial. But then I ran the numbers and it turns out that this one small step cut our electrical consumption by 16%. All of a sudden it didn’t seem so trivial after all.

Back in early February I started writing down the reading on our electrical meter every morning when I got to work. I subtracted the prior day’s reading to get the amount (in Kilowatt Hours) that we used the prior day.  If I missed a day (or the weekend), I just took the difference and divided it by the number of days to get the average rate for the period.

After about a month I pasted the data into GainSeeker Suite SPC Software and came up with this chart:

I also calculated the average daily cost and sent out this memo to my staff:

Here is the challenge: Lets pay attention to your own personal habits and see what we can do to chip away at our electrical consumption. Here are a couple of things you can do:

• Turn off monitors and desktop pcs on evenings and weekends.
• Minimize use of space heaters.
• Unplug any chargers or DC devices that aren’t actually charging anything. (An AC/DC charger consumes power if it is plugged in and not charging anything.)

You may have other ideas. Please try them out.

There are certain computers (like our servers) that need to be up all the time. But lets see what we can do if we try these minimal steps.

I’ll take the difference between now and sometime towards the end of April and buy lunch with the money we don’t give to the utility company. If it is a dollar a day it will be pizza. If it is more, well it will be nicer.

Then we continued monitoring the meter every day. Here are the before and after results on one chart. The Anchor Point (the vertical red line in the center) marks the day the email went out, and the shift in our process.

According to GainSeeker stats, the average daily consumption dropped from 1.9KWH to 1.6KWH. This is a 16% reduction - achieved by something as simple as turning off equipment that isn’t being used!

We had a nice party!

Why is this important? Here are some statistics about my home state, Indiana, of which I am less than proud:

• Indiana produces about 95% of its electricity in coal-burning generating plants.
• Indiana ranks 5th in the nation as the largest producer of carbon dioxide air emissions from electric power plants in the United States (122,094,588 metric tons).
• Indiana ranks 3rd in the nation in terms of the number of metric tons of sulfur dioxide air emissions (responsible for fine particle pollution and acid rain).
• Indiana ranks 4th in terms of the number of metric tons of toxic nitrogen oxides emitted into the atmosphere (responsible for acid rain and smog).
• Indiana ranks 1st in the nation for the amount of carbon dioxide emissions per person from all Indiana energy sectors.

All of this reminds me of the quote that was attributed to Pogo, the famous possum: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

So what are you waiting on? Turn off or pull the plug on stuff you’re not using. Its a great place to start.

And while I’m thinking of it, maybe Electrical Consumption needs to be on our list of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).

What are you doing to reduce your carbon footprint? You can leave a comment, tweet me, schedule a conversation, or call 800-958-2709.

Here is a chance to participate in Hertzler Systems’ development effort.

Sometime in the next few months we’ll be releasing Version 8 of the GainSeeker® Suite. One important capability in this new version is a brand new report writer. I saw a sneak preview of it the other day, and my jaw dropped open several times when I saw what it could do.

Sample Design Screen for GainSeeker Version 8 Report Writer

Our development team is looking for sample reports to test the new report writer with “real data”.

We invite you to submit any sample reports that you have. These might be Certificate of Analysis or other report that you use on a regular basis. You can send in your report whether you’re already a GainSeeker user or not.

Sample Report for GainSeeker Version 8 Report Writer

To submit your sample, send it electronically to [suggest at hertzler dot com], or fax it to 574-533-3885. In either case, make sure you include your contact information so we can respond to you personally.