When you add a new station, you must first decide the hierarchy level of the station. You can add stations at any level of your hierarchy groups within a company. Then you can add a helpful description and image to describe the station.
Next, determine which processes and products use this station. Processes used by multiple products must be added for each product.
Finally, specify the data collection method and data source for each measure or inspection of this station. Sampling plans are defined in the data collection area within the product template. For more information, go to Define a new sampling plan.
Example of adding a new station
The Flavorful Fruit Company adds new stations at the division level.
-
Open the Components
page and select your company folder.
- Select the appropriate folder to add the station. For this example, we add the station to the Fruit Spread Division.
-
Select
New
then select
Station.
- Enter a name for the new station and then select OK. For this example, we add the Chamber 1 station.
- Open the station template that you created.
- In the Description section of the template, select Edit to enter a description. Upload an image and add tags, if you like. For more information on using process tags, go to Tags.
- In Time Zone, select the time zone of the location of the station. By default, the time zone is set to the location of the server, but you must change it to the location of the station to represent the time zone when the data are collected.
- Save your changes.
Example of adding processes and products to a station
The Strawberry Fruit Spread product has 2 stations for the pasteurization process of the strawberry fruit spread.
- Select Add Process.
- Select an existing product from the dropdown list.
- Select an existing process from the dropdown list.
- Select OK.
- Continue for all processes and products that use this station.
- Save your changes.
Example of specifying data sources for a sampling plan
If you have sampling plans for your process data collections, specify the data collection methods and sources.
- Select Configure.
-
For each sampling plan, select how the plan will import the data.
- Select Automatic when all your data are in a single Minitab Connect data table. For more information, go to Set up automatic data collection.
- Select Data Collection Form, select when data come from various sources. For more information, go to Set up data collection in a form.
- Continue for all sampling plans to configure.
Example of specifying the method for calculating control limits for each station
You can specify the method to calculate control limits and the number of observations for each control chart that has been added to each station.
- Select Configure.
-
Select
Edit
for each measure to choose the data source. Under
Control Chart,
choose the method to calculate control limits.
You can calculate from recent observations, or you can provide historical parameter
estimates.
Note
If you calculate from recent observations, you can also change from the default number of observations or default number of subgroups.
- Select OK.
- Continue for all measures to configure.
