Welcome to NWA SPC Update, a newsletter from the world's leading provider of SPC software, featuring the latest solutions from NWA and SPC-related news in manufacturing and the laboratory.

NWA Product News

New NWA SPCx^® Embedded Real-Time SPC Software

NWA SPCx is a new online, real-time, SPC tool that embeds within any Wonderware* InTouch* application. It provides operators, engineers, and managers with timely monitoring of their critical product and process parameters. NWA SPCx makes it easy to incorporate ActiveX-based real-time SPC into Wonderware InTouch applications with the most advanced on-line SPC product available. NWA SPCx takes only minutes to install and requires no scripting.

Selected Wonderware distributors market and support NWA SPCx. If you use Wonderware HMI/SCADA software, call NWA for the name of your nearest SPCx supplier.

Press Release 
NWA SPCx Product Brief

NWA and ASECO Form Partnership to Produce Integrated Quality Systems

NWA and ASECO Integrated Systems, a leading manufacturing consulting and system integration firm, are partnering to deliver a new approach to Quality Information Systems that combines NWA SPC solutions with a flexible, scalable database design. NWA and ASECO have co-developed a set of integration tools that simplify implementation while helping control integration costs and timelines.

Unlike competing products, the NWA/ASECO solution can be customized to meet individual customer needs, scales to meet future requirements, and easily integrates with other information systems. The database design is optimized for NWA products and minimizes configuration, training, and support requirements. This solution will continue NWA's tradition of providing SPC solutions that are powerful, yet easy to use.

NWA Moves to New Offices

NWA has enjoyed another good year with continuing growth in customers, products and personnel. In planning for our future, we have recently completed the move to our new 8th floor offices in the U.S. Bancorp Tower in downtown Portland, Oregon. Our new headquarters gives us room to work efficiently and continue to grow. We welcome our customers and partners to visit our new headquarters at any time!

Press Release 
Article in The Portland Business Journal

Upcoming SPC Training

Applied SPC with NWA Quality Analyst

Date: December 9-10, 2003
Location: Philadelphia, PA

Participants gain expertise using NWA Quality Analyst while applying statistical quality control techniques in classroom exercises. The class then works in teams to solve problems in a simulated manufacturing process. Attendees learn how to maximize their use of NWA Quality Analyst while brushing up on SPC.

Check with us later this month for location and scheduling information on our next seminar.

Full Course Description 
Accommodations and Registration Information

Automating Data Collection with NWA Quality Monitor

Date: December 11, 2003
Location: Philadelphia, PA

This hands-on workshop will guide attendees through NWA Quality Monitor's basic and intermediate features. The workshop includes a design module to give participants the opportunity to reinforce their Quality Monitor skills by creating a complete project from start to finish.

Check with us later this month for location and scheduling information on our next seminar.

Full Course Description 
Accommodations and Registration Information

Industry News

Increase in Business Activity and Quality Projects

NWA has been observing an increase in process improvement projects and initiatives across several industries. This investment in process management offers much hope for the future of our productive economy. Two factors appear to contribute to this activity.

Factor 1: Vendor certification and SPC-based lot acceptance programs

The active use of SPC as part of vendor certification and product acceptance continues to increase. This trend continues in industrial supply chains. Recently, the USDA implemented such a program for the National School Lunch Program.

For details, see Supply Chain Management in the Purchase of Ground Beef.

Factor 2: Increase of business activity and investment

Manufacturing activity is ramping up again. Because of concerns about worldwide competition and the desire to obtain better return on investment, more companies are investing in improved quality systems. NWA observes the same phenomena in countries that previously have been lukewarm to implementing quality control and process management. For example, our Mexico-based distributor reports that Mexican manufacturers are looking to increase SPC use to help compete with Asian manufacturers.

Industry analysts also see an increase in the investment in quality systems. Dr. Tom Fiske, Senior Analyst, ARC Advisory Service has observed:

"With an upswing in the economy and manufacturing activity, ARC has observed increased spending by manufacturers seeking technology that will improve their bottom line. As more organizations shift from production-driven manufacturing to a customer-centric perspective, they are focusing greater attention on quality issues."

If you are facing a new or expanded quality initiative, please contact us to find out how we can help you.

NWA Business Partner Profile: Adept Scientific PLC

NWA has a worldwide network of distributors, systems integrators, and OEMs who market NWA solutions or incorporate NWA technologies into their systems. We continue to expand this group of business partners so that we can better serve companies around the world. In each issue of the NWA SPC Update we will introduce one of these business partners.

Adept Scientific is NWA's Master Distributor in the United Kingdom. Adept has sold NWA software for more than 15 years and also provides training for most NWA software products. Adept maintains a large catalog of scientific and engineering software on their website and publishes "Technical Computing Magazine", which features applications of NWA and other technical software.

Adept has implemented NWA SPC software in many industries and has provided training and support across Great Britain. One of Adept's most recent projects was providing SPC capability to the National Blood Service centers across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. This SPC solution is described in an application note entitled, "How Statistical Process Control Helps the National Blood Service" featured in Adept's SPC Casebook.

Application Note: How Statistical Process Control Helps the National Blood Service 
Adept Website: www.adeptscience.co.uk

SPC Insights

NWA Quality Analyst "System Title"

Often overlooked, the System Title is a useful addition to Quality Analyst output. It appears at the top of all output produced by Quality Analyst, so it's appropriate to identify a company, facility, or office. It's also a good place to record the date and time output was produced.

View Full Article

Shortcut to a Run File

For routine procedures, it's hard to beat the convenience of a desktop shortcut. It's easy to add a shortcut to a Quality Analyst Run file. 

View Full Article

Pattern Rules: If a few rules are good, are more better?

NWA's software supports using "Pattern Rules" on control charts. While the default rules (Western Electric pattern rules) have proven to be effective, one might be tempted to go beyond them and select all of the available rules, or invent new rules. If a few rules are good, are more better?

View Full Article

Events & Publications

Using Statistical Process Control to Analyze Web Activity: An Application Example to Demonstrate the Flexibility of SPC

SPC can deliver intelligent information for more effective decision-making in countless applications. This unique application article demonstrates the flexibility of SPC and may help ignite new ideas as to where else SPC can benefit you.

Evaluating web site activity is tricky business. Because web activity varies constantly, the challenge is to separate everyday random variation from the non-random changes due to marketing programs, web site design, or search engine rank. Failing to recognize the sources of variation can result in one of two errors:

1. Random variation in activity is "explained" by a change in marketing or the web site when no "real" change in activity occurred.
2. A real change in activity is ignored.

Either of the two errors wastes resources and business opportunities.

View Full Article 
This article was first published in the October 2003 issue of the Telesian Technology, www.telesian.com, newsletter, News & Notes - What's Working in Marketing & e-Business.

Web Seminar: Supply Chain Process and Quality Management

Supply chain process and quality management reduces costs and manages overhead while delivering a higher quality vendor/customer working relationship. With vendor certification programs, you select vendors/business partners who have the demonstrated capability of meeting quality and operational performance standards.

Process and quality management and reporting systems manage this relationship. The contractually required quality deliverables can be viewed as standardized "tokens" which allows product to move to the next step in the supply chain. Unless the product carries certification that it meets requirements, it is not allowed to go to the next step in the supply chain and one avoids corrupting the production system. Automated reporting systems decrease operational costs for both vendor and customer and reduce dwell time in the system.

View Presentation
Produced by Penton Media's Supply Chain Group and TOTALsupplychain.com.

Current NWA Product Release Numbers

Users frequently ask us for the current release numbers for their NWA products. To help you keep your NWA software up to date, we publish the release numbers on our website.

Current Product Release Numbers

© Northwest Analytical, Inc., all rights reserved. NWA Quality Monitor, NWA Quality Monitor Supervisor, NWA Quality Analyst, NWA Quality Analyst Web Server, NWA QAx, and NWA SPCx are trademarks or registered trademarks of Northwest Analytical. *All other company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of those respective companies.

Northwest Analytical (NWA) is the leading provider of SPC software with more than 50,000 licenses shipped to over 5,000 companies. NWA software is recognized for its ease-of-use and ability to integrate with other software and systems. The NWA SPC software suite includes plant floor data collection and supervision, enterprise-wide charting and analysis, web-based reporting and embedded SPC.

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