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WHITEPAPER: MOVING FROM MINITAB TO JMP
MINITAB VS JMP TRAINING 2018 (KEVIN POTCNER)
Company
- Privately held, Minitab was developed in 1972 by 3 statistics instructors at Penn State University. Minitab has a global presence offering software, training, and consulting. They had an early start in the quality movement and are widely used in education.
- In early 2017, Minitab acquired Salford Systems, a long-time provider of machine learning, data mining, and predictive modelling capabilities. Even though Minitab 19 is out, Salford, now referred to as SPM (Salford Predictive Modeler) is still sold as a separate product though SPM 8 lists “Open Minitab Worksheet (.MTW) functionality” as a new feature.
- Minitab claims to have many partners globally yet lists none on their web site.
Product
- Minitab 19 now runs on the Mac as well as Windows for quality improvement, reliability, and DOE. Minitab Express,a limited version for teaching, is available on Windows and Mac operating systems. SPM runs on Windows and Linux.
- Minitab is available in 8 languages: Portuguese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Spanish.
- Other products include Companion (for Dashboarding, Monte Carlo simulation, and more), Quality Trainer (for online learning), and Minitab Express (for teaching introductory courses).
Target Audience
- Quality and reliability engineers, proponents of six sigma and lean six sigma, as well as data analysts in a variety of industries.
Feature Strength and JMP Response
- Minitab’s strength is their longevity and penetration into the quality area. A lot of training has been invested where they are the standard for quality analysis, and they are often used by thousands in an organization. Trying to do a full replacement can be challenging. Where JMP has had success is showing our superior capabilities in JMP and JMP Pro and positioning these for the black belts—something the black belts would benefit from, but that JMP is not for everyone. With this exclusivity play, we have also seen green belts asking for JMP. Some view Minitab and JMP as complimentary.
- Minitab was originally designed for and does well for teaching. However, JMP is described as being easier to use and so is used a great deal for training. We have customers who say, “the learning curve for JMP is shockingly fast.” In the end, it comes down to what they are trying to do. Jason Brinkley’s Transition Guide, Moving From Minitab to JMP, is recommended. [Note: we hope to update this transition guide as it is still a popular download.]
- Finding things in Minitab is considered easier in a few instances:
- Minitab Help is more helpful, especially for finding formulas to see how certain calculations were made. JMP chooses not to show formulas as they are sometimes modified in specific situations.
- Nonparametric statistics are grouped together whereas in JMP you have to know the name of the nonparametric statistic you are looking for (e.g., Wilcoxon).
- Minitab 19 highlights:
- Support for Mac OS.
- Performance improvements include 64-bit support, graph and brushing improvements, as well as algorithm improvements.
- Improved user interface with tabbed worksheets, an output pane, navigator, and split view.
- New graphs:correlation matrix plot and Regression Pareto of effects.
- Statistics enhancements include model selection criteria, binary response of DOE, capability analysis confidence intervals, and bootstrapping/randomization tests.
Feature Weaknesses and JMP Response
- Minitab is not interactive like JMP. From an ASQ Linked-in group, a user of Minitab and JMP says “Minitab spits out so many bells & whistles with each analysis technique. JMP requires you to LOOK at your data a little more than Minitab, but you should do that anyway (my opinion)!”
- Similar to SAS Enterprise Guide, Minitab is a language-based GUI code generator. Minitab requires you to specify all options upfront—if you miss something or need to change one option, you have to start over and there is no recall feature like there is in JMP.
- Minitab is weaker in data wrangling, especially now that JMP has Query Builder, multiple file import, and an enhanced Recode.
- Minitab does not have more advanced features than JMP (and comes up even shorter compared to JMP Pro). This is especially the case with DOE and predictive modeling (although Salford Systems has MARS, which JMP doesn’t have).
- Minitab has no data mining in its current product, which is increasingly important for more automated feature selection in this era of ever-wider data. SPM’s implementation of Random Forests (their most popular algorithm trademarked CART) is based on the original Fortran code by Leo Breiman with a license for commercial use. Even with the acquisition, they are still without other data mining algorithms like association (market basket) analysis and support vector machines (which JMP Pro 15 now has).
- Minitab has no text analytics, also of growing importance with more collection of textual data, and they don’t really compete in the consumer/market research space.
Opportunities for JMP
- Consensus is that the best JMP tools to leverage over Minitab are DOE, Model Profiling, Graph Builder, Dynamic Visual Analysis, Reliability, Consumer Research, Text Explorer, Functional Data Explorer and now with JMP Pro 15 the SVM and more modern Time Series Forecasting platforms.The best organizational areas to leverage JMP over Minitab are Six Sigma, Engineering/R&D, and Manufacturing/Quality Services.
- Emphasize the user’s experience with JMP. JMP is as much about the waywe do things as whatwe do. JMP recognizes that it’s the interplay between user and software that generates value and JMP is designed to make the user productive.
- Focus on getting more use in academia so we have more JMP users coming to the work force who like the visual, interactive paradigm that is JMP.
- Other key JMP differentiators: Process Screening Platform to quickly pinpoint trouble process variables among 10000’s of factors, Wheeler MSA, Control Chart Builder – assess rational subgrouping on the fly, RBD and FDE (JMP Pro). With more deployment options in JMP Pro 15 (e.g., improved integration with R and Python), there may be opportunities to position Pro to black belts.
- From Ledi Trutna in SAS Education, who has used Minitab 13, and then 16, she lists key differences where JMP is better than Minitab in her opinion:
- Interactivity of the graphs – selecting points in one graph that get highlighted in another graph.
- Animation!!
- Row states – being able to color/mark rows based on another column, exclude, hide and label.
- Column properties
- Shape functions in graph builder
- Custom DOE
- Graph Builder and Control Chart Builder
- Different menu structures–JMP menus and options are added after the graph is created. In Minitab, you have to select options before the graph is made – like adding phases to a control chart – needs to be done before you create the graph.
Threats for JMP
- Minitab provides consulting services which may give them more price flexibility.
- Minitab Quality Companion – Manage quality improvement projects; process mapping tools, value stream mapping, project management etc.
- Minitab Quality Trainer – Quality engineering statistics training tool to learn and improve quality.
- Minitab is still a standard for many organizations and now that they support the Mac OS, it may be more difficult to make inroads into organizations where Minitab is already entrenched.
Pricing
- Single-user perpetual pricing starts at $1795 with upgrades to new versions available for $1095.
- Annual network license fees for Minitab 19 are available on request, but for version 18, 5-pack licenses started at $3455; 10-pack for $5560. See http://www.minitab.com/en-us/products/minitab/pricing/.
- Academic single-user rentals start at $29.99 for a 6-month period.
Competitive references where we’ve won against them or displaced them.
- Places we have replaced Minitab:
- First Solar
- Bank of America
- Akzo Nobel in the Netherlands for their L6S program where we displaced Minitab for 50 Black Belts in December 2012. JMP is now the standard tool for the Operational Excellence program.
- R+V Insurance
- Autoliv
- Rotodyne
- Places we have made inroads or displaced some Minitab before the release of JMP 15:
- GE Healthcare AB
- Ashland LLC
- NPA Coatings
- Knudsen
- Sihto
- National Research Council of Canada
- Places we have made inroads or displaced some Minitab before the release of JMP 14:
- Fitbit
- Velux
- Unomedical
- Blue Cube Germany
- Cristal
- Royal Phillips
- Places we have made inroads or displaced some Minitab before the release of JMP 13:
- Sundrop Fuels
- Monsanto (JMP being incorporated for Greenbelt training)
- Remington
- NXP Semiconductors
- Lexmark International
- Kerneos
- Asurion
- Clear Energy Systems
- Places where we don’t know if we replaced Minitab, just made inroads, or won against:
- Boeing
- Whirlpool
- GE
- ATIALLVAC
- Teva
- Xerox
- Knauf Insulation
- Suntrust
- Kinetics
- Solutia
- Milliken
- US Synthetic
- Amphenol Printed Circuits
- Advanced Energy Industries
- Touchsensor Technologies
- Matthey
- Transitions Optical
- NASA Jet Propulsion Labs
- Carlisle Power Transmission Products
- Novartis
