SPC Software

SPC software comes in many different flavors these days. From simple SPC utilities that can be set up quickly to fully integrated plant level systems that integrate with ERP systems and manage complex customer certifications. This article will focus on flexible SPC systems. These are systems that can be highly configured.

A canned SPC system will return standard calculations like CPK and standard deviation. In addition, a canned system will also provide run charts and histograms. The areas that canned systems tend to come up short in are data management and certification reporting. Canned SPC software often contains certifications but they never seem to be in a format that the customer would prefer.

Working with data in a canned system can also be very problematic. A solutions provider that offers configurable systems will almost always be able to save your employees keying time by setting up data structures so that specs that can be applied to multiple products are managed collectively. They also generally provide integration services allowing your employees import job information from other enterprise systems.