Hi-
A customer just asked if JMP had an alternative to Minitab's Quality Companion? I started to quickly reply back "No" because I attended MTB's QC2 training about 10+ years ago, but of course I couldn't do that without offering some alternatives in JMP. In the past, I have thought about using journals or JMP Projects to create an A3 template that would accomplish a similar task for keeping a high level view of customer's project status. While QC is a good product for keeping PI projects together, organized, & tracking workflow, I found that Excel templates & PPT worked just as well (& much cheaper). Another advantage that we were considering at the time was it's ability to import JPEGs/gifs from any other software into QC which is one reason why our training team was considering it since we didn't only train with one stat software package. Anyone else have any thoughts on how we can attract QC users?
I think if the project has PPT and Excel Templates and sometimes JMP Templates incorporated this can be done. However the usability is hard to achieve. If you want to add new FMEA or SIPOC elements to your process this is a mouse click away in QC and you can easily move these elements arund and can change this. This is not that easy and intuitive in JMP (did I really say this?).
I think there is not a good, without much work solution within JMP. However if someone wnats to create similar thing and does not fear the efford it should be doable - at least to a certain degree.
However, if you provide your employees a project charter for specific projects using a template, a project - journal combination could be a good way to do so. Opening a new project having a Jouirnal telling you the different steps you have to check for, Adding certain predefined elements by copy and paste of predefined elements in a second journal. This could work fine. In addition you can save your analysis into the project journal easily and the tables to the project itself.
The main difference would be the missing "Windows explorer" feeling from a usability point of view.
Concluding, if people are convinced from JMP and want something similar, Project/Journal combination with an additional Template Journal for all the possible elements I want to add to my process charter would be the way to go. If they are not convinced already - or doo not know JMP - already I believe it'll be very hard to attract QC users with that approach.
Why not use a JMP Project? About the only thing I think would be missing (if I recall QC accurately) is the ability to add a graphical workflow diagram.
