FREE SPC SOFTWARE FOR ACADEMIC and GOVERNMENT USE! * Commercial Statistical Process Control (SPC) software which can be freely reproduced and redistributed for academic and governmental purposes. * Academic Institutions & students and local, state, & federal (U.S.) government agencies or representatives will be granted licenses at no charge. * Academic and governmental feedback WILL be incorporated into the future releases of the software. * MicroSoft Windows (1994) and MacIntosh (1995) versions under development and will also be available freely to academic and governmental institutions. * Comparable commercial SPC software costs about $200-$1,000 per copy and $5,000-$20,000 for a site license. SUMMARY: Many colleges and universities are begining to provide courses in Total Quality Management (TQM) and Statistical Process Control (SPC) techniques. In the case of SPC, and specifically control charts, the process of manually creating and re-creating these complex statistical/graphical tools is extremely cumbersome. It is critical to our nation that colleges and universities provide effective courses in statistics, SPC, TQM, etc. In addition, many government agencies are attempting to use these techniques to improve their cost effectiveness and quality of service in an era of ever increasing budget austerity. Towards these ends, I am making my company's commercial software product, "SPC EXpert", available at no cost to academic and government institutions. I have included a description of "SPC EXpert" below. Commercial shareware distributors and BBSs will send anyone a copy of SPC EXpert for a nominal fee of about $4-$10. My company will issue licenses to academic and government users at no cost! Future releases of SPC EXpert will also be available at no cost. Comparable commercial software costs about $200-$1,000 per copy and about $5,000-$20,000 for a site-license. DESCRIPTION: "SPC EXpert" Software Quality Software Designs, Inc. has developed a software tool which automates the statistical and graphical tools used in Statistical Process Control, Total Quality Management and other process improvement techniques. These tools include: Run Chart,Moving Range Chart, R Chart, S Chart, XBarR Chart, XBarS Chart, XMR Chart, PN Chart, P Chart, C Chart, U Chart, Bar Graph, Pareto Diagram, Pie Chart, Histogram, Frequency Polygon, Ogive(CDF), and Scatter Diagram. SPC EXpert supports multiple printers including HP Laserjet, HP Deskjet, HP Plotters, Post Script, IBM/Epson and more; exports to graphics files (CGM & EPS) which can be imported into commercial graphics and desktop publishing software such as Harvard Graphics, WordPerfect, MicroSoft PowerPoint, and MicroSoft Word; produces descriptive (mean, median, std dev, skewness, min, max, range) regression (r^2, t-test , F-test) and process capability (Cp, Cpk, Cpu, Cpl, % inspec) statistics for up to 16,000 elements; automatically analyzes control charts for out-of-control conditions and provides expert advice on their meaning; provides an integrated word processor; imports data from ASCII files; includes standard distribution functions such as normal, exponential, lognormal, and Weibull; multiple-simultaneous-user PC LAN capable; custom enhancement services available to tailor the help screens, expert advice and statistical tools to your specific needs or preferences! Requires IBM PC or compatible; VGA, EGA, CGA, or Hercules; mouse support; will use 8087 if available. SPC EXpert is a SHAREWARE product. You may freely reproduce and re-distribute SPC EXpert for evaluation and educational purposes. Copies of SPC EXpert can be obtained for about $4-$10 from several national shareware distributors. CONTACT: (To order copies of SPC EXpert, see participating vendors list below. I receive no payment or compensation for these sales.) Mark Shewhart 933 East Stroop Road Kettering, OH 45429 (513) 299-3023 marks@meaddata.com or ...!uunet!meaddata!marks PARTICIPATING SHAREWARE VENDORS: (More to come later) The following Shareware companies have agreed to distribute SPC EXpert at nominal postage, materials, and handling fees: (As of 29 March 1993) Public Software Library PO Box 35705 Houston, TX 77235 USA 1-800-242-4775 FAX (713) 524-6398 Ask for "SPC EXpert" or Disk #20166 Comes on one 3.5" (1.44M) or two 5.25" (360K) disks FEE: US $10.99 ($6.99 disks + $4.00 postage) FOREIGN $17.99 ($6.99 disks + $11.00 postage) Quality Software Designs, Inc (Until a cheaper vender found) 933 East Stroop Road Kettering, OH 45429 USA Pre-paid written orders ONLY! (Cash, Check, or Money Order) Comes on one 3.5" (720K) or two 5.25" (360K) disks FEE: US & FOREIGN $10.00 US Currency FTP Sites: 1. SPC EXpert is available via anonymous ftp from: jse.stat.ncsu.edu and is found in the directory software/misc under the filename spcex.exe - a self extracting file done with PKZIP 2.04g 2. ehssun1.lbl.gov and is found in the directory tdcpub/spc under the filename spcex.exe - a self extracting file done with PKZIP 2.04g --------------------------------------------------------------------- SUBJECT: Frequently asked questions about SPC EXpert software I appologize for bothering you all again, however I am receiving an overwhelming number of questions about the SPC EXpert Software which are usually the same question. Below I'll answer some of the common questions; to give you the background behind all of this, I have attached a copy of a DRAFT letter that I will soon be sending to the Federal Quality Institute in Washington DC as well as my Congressional Representatives. Q1: What is your background? A1: Mark Shewhart B.S. Computer Engineering, Univ of Illinois at Urbana M.S. Applied Mathematics, Univ of Illinois at Urbana M.S. Computer Science, Wright State University, Dayton OH Developed US Air Force SPC software SPC Versions 1.1 & 1.2 Q2: Are you related to Walter Shewhart, the "Father of Statistical Process Control and the Shewhart chart"? A2: Yes. Walter Shewhart and my grandfather (Harry Shewhart) were first cousins. Q3: How can I get SPC EXpert NOW or electronically? A3: I have sent Tim Arnold ( arnold@stat.ncsu.edu) a copy in the mail on 25 March 1993. Please encourage him to make SPC EXpert electronically available ASAP. The commercial shareware companies will take several weeks to be ready to take orders. In the short term, Quality Software Designs Inc. will send out the disks for a pre-paid fee of $10 US. Send to Quality Software Designs Inc, 933 E Stroop Rd, Kettering OH 45429 USA. I do not wish to have Quality Software Designs do this for very long. Q4: Is the documentation on-line or will we have to pay to receive it? A4: The documentation is on-line in a hypertext format which includes sample data files and resulting graphics. The docuentation is also on the disk in an ASCII file, "manual.txt". Q5: Why are you doing this? A5: Although this may be a good marketing approach, I have deeply personal feelings about making this type of software freely available to academics and government. The DRAFT letter below may provide you with the reasons for my strong feelings: ------- DRAFT LETTER TO Federal Quality Institute ------ SUBJECT: TQM Software licensed FREE to government agencies TO: Federal Quality Institute (FQI) Washington DC As you are aware, many government agencies are attempting to apply Total Quality Management (TQM) and Statistical Process Control (SPC) techniques to improve their cost effectiveness and quality of service in this era of ever increasing budget austerity. I am hereby donating my company's commercial TQM/SPC software package, SPC EXpert, to all federal, state, and local government agencies as well as to academic institutions and students. I need your help to make this information available to all appropriate agencies and institutions. Below you will find a brief description of the events which lead to this decision. During 1992, I developed a TQM/SPC package while a civilian employee of the Air Force Material Command's (AFMC) Center for Supportability and Technology Insertion (CSTI). I fought-for, developed, and promoted two releases of this software (SPC Version 1.1 released in March 1992 and SPC Version 1.2 released in October 1992). The Federal Quality Institute, Washington DC, actively promoted the availability of SPC Version 1.1 which CSTI sent free to anyone in the United States. Over 2500 government employeeswrote or called to register for SPC Version 1.2 which represented a significant enhancement over Version 1.1. Over 800 academic institutions and small businesses wrote requesting our SPC software as well. The Defense Systems Management College (DSMC), a 6 month college for all senior DOD officials, is currently distributing copies of SPC Version 1.2 to ALL of its students in 1993. However, during the last half of 1992, several unfortunate events occurred: (1) As a result of complaints to Congress from several commercial SPC software vendors, CSTI was forced to discontinue distributing its SPC software outside of the government. This left many academic institutions and small businesses, who can not afford the $200-$1000 per copy cost of comparable commercial SPC software, without an effective tool to teach SPC techniques to the next generation of America's workers or to improve their processes and competitiveness in today's global marketplace. (2) In an attempt to reduce the costs to the Air Force as well as make our valuable software available to the taxpayers who funded its development, I attempted to get legal (AFMC/JA) approval to submit our software to the over 200 commercial software shareware distributors in the United States. These commercial shareware companies would have charged $4-$10 to mail a copy of our software to anyone. Compare this to the $30 that the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) would charge or the $90 that the Commerce Department's National Technical Information Service (NTIS) would charge to send the software to other government agencies and you will understand why the shareware approach was the best. However, AFMC legal representatives rejected this approach stating that there is too great a risk that someone might sue the Air Force despite disclaimers of non-liability on the software and documentation. The AFMC/JA also indicated that CSTI should probably not "be in competition with" the (quite over-priced in my opinion) DTIC and NTIS. (3) In November 1992, CSTI was absorbed into AFMC's Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC). ASC felt that it was "not its job" to develop useful software that saved the government thousands of dollars and helped other government agencies to improve their processes. As a result, I was ordered to immediately stop my work on the project and transfer ownership of it to the Air Force Quality Center (AFQC) at Maxwell AFB. Currently, the Air Force Quality Center is restricting access to this software to only DOD agencies via an electronic bulletin board system which is not operational yet - i.e. they will not send anyone a copy of the software. In addition, AFQC has no plans to improve the product for the thousands of government customers who are using SPC Version 1.2. The Air Force Quality Center can be reached at (205) 953-4404 to verify this information. Partly as a result, I left the Civil Service in January 1993. I have formed my own company, Quality Software Designs Inc, to continue the type of work that I love. Since then, I have developed an SPC software package, SPC EXpert, which is similar in capabilities to SPC Version 1.2 and more advanced versions are under development. As a Civil Servant, I felt that I was making a positive impact - I was contributing to the improvement of government processes, the establishment of effective university programs to teach Quality improvement techniques, and the increased competitiveness of US businesses. I am proud of this fact. Therefore, I am making my company's commercial software product, "SPC EXpert", available at no licensing fee to all academic and US government institutions. A description of SPC EXpert is attached. Copies (freely reproducible) of SPC EXpert can be obtained from commercial shareware distributors for a materials, postage, and handling fee of about $4-$10. A list of participating shareware companies is attached; I do not receive any compensation from the distributors. I am hereby asking the Federal Quality Institute to proactively share this information with all government agencies as it did for the USAF SPC Version 1.1. I pledge to improve this software and make future versions available in this manner as well. If you have any questions, please call me at (513) 299-3023. An alternative number to reach me during the work day is (513) 865-6800 ext 4717. Mark Shewhart, President Quality Software Designs, Inc.