Ronald Andrews, Sole Proprietor, Andrews Practical Stats
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away…
Actually, it was 1985 in Rochester, NY. Eastman Kodak had 60,000 employees in the community. Sales of photographic film (that stuff your grandparents used to take pictures before digital cameras) were expanding. Waste was too high and the product was too variable. After trying everything else, the corporate quality finally obtained a green light for an SPC program. Within four years, the variance for several key measures dropped by a factor of 100. Products that had averaged six formula changes per event went for six months without a change.
Photographic film manufacturing is no longer important for most of us, but the quality improvement processes used are as relevant today as ever. They are also enabled by JMP. In 1985 we used pencil and paper and mainframe SAS. Data collection sheets, cause and effect diagrams, regression analysis and SPC charts are all facilitated today with JMP.
