Data Heads Blog

We’re very excited to release our new GainSeeker Platform Library Audit & Compliance Kit. As we’ve shared in the past, the GainSeeker Platform Library (GPL) is a collection of ideas, best practices, and tools for maximizing the value users get from deploying GainSeeker Suite. The GPL Audit and Compliance Kit makes it easy to set up simple audit processes to ensure that routine work is performed accurately and on time.

Greetings everyone!!  Let me shamelessly plug our next GainSeeker Tech Tips LIVE webinar.  It is April 19th and the topic is on our new and improved GainSeeker Desktops in version 8.9! (Link to register is at the bottom.) With this topic in mind, I thought to myself, "I wonder if everyone knows about or uses [...]

Here are two new opportunities for you to participate in the GainSeeker Platform Library design and review cycles: Overall Equipment Effectiveness Kit and the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit.

The GainSeeker Platform Library of solutions (GPL) is picking up momentum. While it is still in beta mode, we’re already hearing enthusiastic support from clients. Recently we hosted some deep dive demos into the early draft of a new Audit and Compliance Kit with a handful of clients. These demos were a great learning experience for all of us. These experiences made me want to engage even more closely with you in developing the GainSeeker Platform Library solutions. Here is how you can participate.

Python scripts are here, and they are really, really cool. If you have not noticed yet, our PC Collect module continues to replace (and improve on) our "oldie, but goodie" Data Entry Module. One reason PC Collect is replacing Date Entry: you can do so much more "out-of-the-box" using the drag and drop Inspection Editor. The Inspection Editor makes setting up data entry much easier because you don't need to know template commands. And for those Template gurus who create innovative and complex data collection processes, no need to worry. We made it easy to customize Inspections using Python scripts. Before we added Python scripts to Inspections, the only Python I knew was the snake. With just a little experience, I've found Python scripts easy to learn, and they seem more logical than template coding. So this month I decided to write about Python scripts because the more you know, the friendlier it becomes to you. Thus, my title: Three degrees of Python scripts. I thought it might be helpful to think about three degrees or levels of Python scripting skills.

One of the first kits we released in the GainSeeker Platform Library is the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit. Developing the Overfill and Package Weight Control Kit was an easy decision because this is an application area where clients have seen an early and substantial return on their investment. For example, an early Hertzler case study was about a client who used the forerunner of GainSeeker Suite - QA/S for DOS if you’re an old-timer - to reduce overfill. Using our innovative “Seven Way SPC Sort”, he was able to pin down and remove variation in the performance of filler heads in a bottle fill line. The company was filling bottles of a popular household window cleaner. The client reported that they had reduced overfill by a couple of grams per line. I remember he said: “A couple grams are nothing to the consumer. But when you add that up across all the product we sell per year, it’s a lot of money to our company.”

A GainSeeker SPC Standard defines one characteristic of the part number, item, or process that you are studying. The SPC Standard must be created for each characteristic of a part before you can enter data and generate charts for that characteristic. Without a Standard you cannot store or retrieve data. You also cannot setup real-time alarms for your operators. The SPC Standard is a core foundation of SPC data and it is worth brushing up on.

We began thinking about GainSeeker as a platform for quality and manufacturing data a few years ago. Clients achieve business outcomes by building solutions (Use Cases) to specific business problems on top of the GainSeeker Platform. We starting using that platform language because it reflected how our clients were actually using GainSeeker. Even though we saw GainSeeker as an SPC (Statistical Process Control) software solution, our customers were using it for much more. They were solving all kinds of interesting and difficult data problems. But they all boiled down to creative work by our clients and our team to solve real world problems and provide real bottom-line value to our clients.

Most people, when I talk with them concerning defects, are familiar with Pareto Charts. They pretty much go hand and hand. I get it, especially with GainSeeker's Pareto Charts you can easily drill-down into them. Not as many people utilize the DPU Charts and I thought it was time to showcase this feature, especially since we added second level grouping in GainSeeker Version 8.8!

GainSeeker Suite real-time SPC software can have a profound impact on a business, and even on a whole supply chain. What makes that possible? It seemed to me that we could boil it down to a few really big differences between GainSeeker and most of the rest of the software that is out there for collecting, managing, and analyzing manufacturing quality data. Here is my short list of the top features.