NWA Releases New Version of Web-based SPC Reporting Software Now with Exception Reporting
Northwest Analytical, Inc. (NWA), the leading provider of statistical process control (SPC) software, announced the availability of NWA Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1, part of NWA’s comprehensive SPC software solution. NWA Quality Analyst Web Server provides near real-time monitoring of remote plants and contract manufacturing facilities and quality reporting throughout the plant, enterprise, and supply chain.
Quality Analyst Web Server now includes exception reporting and several performance improvements that enable organizations to more closely monitor violations of product specifications, SPC limits, and SPC pattern rules to ensure product consistency and meet customer acceptance and supplier certification requirements.
Benefits of NWA Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1
Compare and Analyze Multiple Manufacturing Locations
As companies move toward world class manufacturing, they need to ensure production processes are optimized, predictable, and capable of meeting specifications. With Quality Analyst Web Server, SPC charts can be produced and viewed at remote locations. The user only needs a browser and access to the Internet. With the ability to view data from multiple plants in one page, management can compare the performance of several locations.
Monitor and Analyze Remote Contract and Overseas Manufacturing
As more organizations move to contract and overseas manufacturing, the need to monitor multiple remote manufacturing facilities has increased. NWA Quality Analyst Web Server delivers the SPC information management needs, when it needs it. And, because the SPC charts are linked to the underlying data, management can use Web Server to monitor overseas plants in near real time.
Meet Customer Quality Requirements
With Quality Analyst Web Server, reports can be made available to customers instantly—uniquely tailored for each customer to prove the shipment meets specifications.
Meet Supplier Certification Requirements
With Quality Analyst Web Server, suppliers can log on and immediately see quality reports for their products. When the supplier and the manufacturer can view the same information, misunderstandings are greatly reduced and problems are solved faster.
According to Louis Halvorsen, vice president of development at NWA, “The ability to get the reports without moving data is a critical issue now for many companies as remote manufacturing increases, Internet security concerns grow, and bandwidth costs increase. Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1, with its exception reporting capabilities, gives our customers the quality information they need to ensure product consistency and meet customer acceptance and supplier certification demands across all manufacturing facilities.”
Major New Features and Benefits of NWA Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1
Exception Reporting
Quality Analyst Web Server now provides exception reports displayed in web pages. The reports list product specification and SPC violations organized by user-defined views. The user can create the relevant SPC chart for each set of exceptions with the click of a button. Exception reports may be developed using XSLT, and users can “subscribe” to specific reports with RSS.
Performance Improvements
SPC charts and exception reports are now cached for user-defined time periods to improve performance and eliminate duplicated database access and calculation processes. In addition, a single reference can now create all charts used in a web page to reduce the processing time required to complete the page.
Scheduled Chart and Exception Report Creation
For users who periodically update the SPC reports on their web sites, NWA Quality Analyst Web Server® can now be used to create SPC charts and exception reports at scheduled times or frequencies.
New “Rotate” command for chart images
SPC charts can now be rotated to offer more flexibility in page design, and to make it easier to design web pages for devices such as PDAs.
Improved Web Server Configuration Program
The Quality Analyst Web Server configuration program has been expanded to support new features and redesigned to make it easier to manage sites with large numbers of references.
For more information about the enhancements made to Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1, please visit www.nwasoft.com/qawsnew.htm .
Availability, Configurations, and Pricing
NWA Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1 is now shipping. It runs on Microsoft* Windows* 95, 98, Me, NT4, 2000, XP, and Server 2003 operating systems, conforms to accepted web security conventions, and uses standard graphics file formats. To get started, a configuration kit that includes Quality Analyst Web Server is now available for $6,995.
NWA Quality Analyst Web Server 2.1 is integrated with NWA Quality Analyst® and NWA Quality Monitor® products. Quality Analyst provides the graphical analysis of process performance so that staff can judge the impact of process-improvement decisions, even when the user has only minimal training in statistical techniques. Quality Monitor automates plant-floor data collection. Together with Quality Analyst and Quality Monitor, Quality Analyst Web Server allows a manager or engineer to receive quality performance reports, exception reports, or alerts for more timely monitoring of remote plant and contract manufacturing facilities. For details about these products, call 888-692-7638 or visit www.nwasoft.com/products.htm .
About Northwest Analytical
Northwest Analytical (NWA) is the world’s leading provider of SPC software, with more than 50,000 licenses shipped to over 5,000 companies. NWA software is recognized for its power, ease-of-use and its simple, tight integration with other manufacturing systems. The NWA SPC software suite includes products for QA/QC analytics, plant floor quality data collection and monitoring, charting, enterprise reporting, and real-time, embedded SPC. For more information, contact Northwest Analytical at sales@nwasoft.com ; call 888-692-7638 or 503-224-7727; or visit www.nwasoft.com .
* NWA Quality Analyst, NWA Quality Monitor, and NWA Quality Analyst Web Server are registered trademarks of Northwest Analytical. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
