Improvement Insights Blog
How Six Sigma SPC Software Design Can Slash the Learning Curve
How you design software can slash the learning curve. Did you design it for college students studying statistics or a business man or woman who just wants to achieve a result with minimal time, effort and training?
“Hi, Jay Arthur with the QI Macros [software]. I wanted to talk to you today about Six Sigma SPC software.
“Now, there’s some big dogs out there, and if you look at them real closely, you’ll see they were designed by professors in the statistical department who wanted to create software to train students in statistics. It has every nook and cranny and option and tweak and everything that you can possibly do to teach people statistics, and fill up curriculums that’ll last an entire semester to focus on different things that you could do to tweak all these little statistics. But is that really what we need to know, or would you rather have something designed by a software engineer with 50 years experience trying to help customers get to their outcome – their business outcome – in a hurry without too much hassle? That’s me, okay?
“Now, one of the things that I observed is I keep trying to make QI Macros simpler, faster, easier for people to learn and use. Some of these other packages could take you 4 to 5 days to learn how to use them; and QI Macros you can learn in 5 or 10 minutes. (Now, you’re not going to learn ALL of it [in that time], right? I’m not going to teach you DOE [in that time]) But all of the tools are in there, and they all work consistently, all right? There’s not a lot of options: click a button, select some data, click a button, get a chart. As one of my guys here says, “The only thing that’s easier to use is a garage door opener.”
“So if we’re going to create a hassle-free America, a hassle-free world, we have to make it so that the average Joe or Suzy can learn it like that , and then they can start to make improvements based on the outcomes that come out of the software. What I’ve done with the QI Macros is make it something that people can learn quickly and easily, and start to get results without having to go to a big long class… You used to [have to] spend days in training… I’m against it, all right? If I can do something to make your life easier, that’s my goal in the world.
“So that’s my Improvement Insight for this week. Let’s go out and improve something somewhere on planet Earth this week.”
