Lean Six Sigma

Introduction to Minitab
Dr. Jitesh Thakkar, IIT Kharagpur
 Agenda
• Introduction to Minitab
1

• Excel Or Minitab
2

• The Minitab user interface

3

• Window Types: Session Window & Data Window

4

• Menu Bar : File Menu, Edit Menu, Manip Menu, Calc Menu, Stat Menu, Graph Menu,
5 Editor Menu, Graph Window Editor Menu, Window Menu, Help Menu
 Agenda
• Data Entry & Manipulation
1

• Ways to Analyze Data

2

• Loading Data In Minitab

3

• Doing Calculations with variables

4

• Statistical Analysis
5
Get Started!!
 Introduction to Minitab
• Minitab, originally intended as a tool for
teaching statistics, is a general-purpose
statistical software package designed for
easy interactive use.
• Minitab is well suited for instructional
applications, but is also powerful enough to
be used as a primary tool for analyzing
research data.
 History of Minitab
• Minitab is a statistics package developed at the
Pennsylvania State University by researchers
Barbara F. Ryan, Thomas A. Ryan, Jr., and
Brian L. Joiner in 1972.
• It began as a light version of OMNITAB, a
statistical analysis program by NIST;
• The documentation for OMNITAB was
published 1986.
• Minitab is distributed by Minitab Inc, a
privately owned company headquartered
in State College Pennsylvania Minitab Inc.
 Excel Or Minitab
• Minitab:  Excel:

 Easier / Faster Graphing  Easier Data Entry

 Graphs & Data Analysis  No pre-set data
in 1-Step formatting required for
 Report Writing tool within analysis
Minitab  Need multiple tools &

 Requires Stacked Data for Steps for Data Analysis &

most Tools Graphs
 Minitab is a statistical
analysis software package
 Minitab & Excel:

 Multiple Windows/Worksheets within one main file.

 Data Analysis Capability

 The Minitab user interface
• The Minitab user interface Before you start your analysis, open
Minitab and examine the Minitab user interface. From the
Windows taskbar, choose Start > All Programs > Minitab >
Minitab 17 Statistical Software.
• By default, Minitab opens with two windows visible and one
window minimized.
• Session window The window displays the results of your analyses
in text format. Also, in this window, you can enter session
commands instead of using Minitab’s menus.
• Worksheet The worksheet, which is similar to a spreadsheet, is
where you enter and arrange your data. You can open multiple
worksheets.
• Project Manager The third window, the Project Manager, is
minimized below the worksheet.
Minitab at a Glance
Window Types: Session Window & Data
Window
Menu Bar - File Menu

Key
Functions
•Worksheet File
Management

Save

Print

Data Import
Menu Bar - Edit Menu

Key
Functions
•Worksheet File
Edits

Select
Delete
Copy
Paste
Dynamic
Links
Menu Bar - Data Menu
Key
Functions
•Data
Manipulation

Subset/Split
Sort
Rank
Row Data
Manipulation
Column
Data
Manipulation
Menu Bar - Calc Menu
Key Functions
•Calculation
Capabilities

Column
Calculations
Column/Row
Statistics
Data
Standardization
Data Extraction
Data
Generation
Menu Bar - Stat Menu
Key
Functions
•Advanced
Statistical Tools
and Graphs

Hypothesis
Tests
Regression
Design of
Experiments
Control
Charts
Reliability
Testing
Menu Bar - Graph Menu
Key
Functions
•Data Plotting
Capabilities

Scatter Plot
Trend Plot
Box Plot
Contour/3 D
plotting
Dot Plots
Probability
Plots
Stem & Leaf
Plots
Menu Bar – Editor Menu:
Worksheet
Key Functions
•Advanced Edit and Display
Options
Data Brushing
Column Settings
Column
Insertion/Moves
Cell Insertion
Worksheet Settings
Menu Bar - Editor Menu: Session
Window
Key
Functions
•Advanced Edit
and Display
Options

Font
Connectivit
y Settings
Menu Bar - Graph Window Editor Menu
Key
Functions
•Advanced Edit
and Display
Options

Brushing
Graph
Manipulation
Colors
Orientation
Font
Menu Bar – Tool Bar
Key Functions
•Advanced Edit and
Display Options

Microsoft Calculator
Notepad
Window Explorer
Toolbars
Status Bar
Menu Bar - Window Menu
Key
Functions
•Advanced
Window Display
Options

Window
Managemen
t/Display
Toolbar
Manipulatio
n/Display
Menu Bar - Help Menu
Key
Functions
•Help and
Tutorials

Subject
Searches

Statguide

Multiple
Tutorials

Minitab on
the Web
Menu Bar - Assistant Menu
Key Functions
•Advanced Edit and Display
Options

Measurement System
Analysis
Capability Analysis
Graphical Analysis
Hypothesis Tests
Regression
 Data Entry & Manipulation
In a project, you can manipulate data, perform analyses, and generate graphs.
Projects contain one or more worksheets.
– MPJ for Project Files (Ex:Data.mpj)
• Worksheets
• Graphs
• Session window output
• Session command history
• Dialog box settings
• Window layout
– MTW For Data Files (Worksheets only Ex:Data.mtw)
• Constants
• Matrices
• Design objects
• Column descriptions
• Worksheet descriptions
– MFG For Graphs (Graphs only Ex: Pareto1.mgf)
 Short Cut Keys
• Control C / Control V
– Copies data / Pastes data
• Alt Tab
– Moves you from one Windows application to another
– Ex:
• Minitab to PowerPoint for making presentations
• Excel to Minitab for copying data
• Control E
– Pulls up previous menu
• Control Tab
– Moves you from Data, Session, History, and Info
Windows
 Data Type
• Numerical: Numerical data is the only type Minitab will
use for statistical calculations. Numerical data is aligned
on the right side of the column. Minitab will not recognize
numbers with commas as numbers, but as text.

• Text: Text cannot be used for computations. Though “text”

generally means words or characters, numbers can be
classified as text. If column 1 has text in it, the column
label will change from C1 to C1-T. Data types can be
changed.

• Date/Time: Minitab recognizes 3/5/00 as a date, but will

store this internally as a number so you can manipulate it.
The column label will indicate a date by C1-D and a time
by C1-T.
 Ways to Analyze Data
• Analysis in Minitab can be done in two ways: using the Built-In
routines or using command language in the Session window.
These two can be used interchangeably.
– Built-In routines Most of the functions needed in basic and more
advanced statistical analysis are found as Minitab Built-In
routines. These routines are accessed through the menu bar. To
use the menu commands, click on an item in the menu bar to
open a menu, click on a menu item to execute a command or open
a submenu or dialog box.

– Command Language To be able to type commands in the Session

window, you must obtain the “MTB>” prompt. All commands are
then entered after the “MTB>” prompt. All command lines are
free format, in other words, all text may de entered in upper or
lowercase letters anywhere in the line.
 Loading Data In Minitab
• Minitab files are organized as “projects”.
Each project will contain all the data you
use and the commands and analysis you
perform on the data.
• You can open a new, empty worksheet at
any time. In this empty worksheet you can
copy, paste and type the data you need by
simply working on the worksheet as you
would on any spreadsheet.
 Opening an existing Worksheet
(Minitab type file)
• Within a project you can open one or more files that contain data. When you
open a file, you copy the contents of the file into the current Minitab project.
• To open a Minitab type file
– Choose FILE -> OPEN WORKSHEET
– Look for the file you want to open. Should be a .MTW or .MPJ type file.
Select the file and click Open.
– If you get a message box indicating that the content of the file will be
added to the current project, check “Do not display this message again”.
– Click OK.
 Importing data (Non – Minitab type
files)
• Opening Excel files
– Choose FILE -> OPEN
WORKSHEET
– In the field “File of Type”
select EXCEL (*.xls,
*.xlsx) from the drop
down menu.
– Choose the file you wish
to open, and click Open.
 Importing data (Non – Minitab
type files)…Cont..
• Opening a text file
– 1. Choose FILE -> OPEN WORKSHEET
– 2. In the field “File of Type” select TEXT (*.txt) from the
drop down menu.
– 3. Click OPTIONS and the following dialog box will
appear.
– 4. Go to the “SINGLE CHARACTER SEPARATOR”
option. The data on the text file is usually separated by
spaces or tabs. Choose the appropriate option. If you are
unsure how the data is separated, another option is to
use the number of data rows. Just introduce the number
of data rows in the “NUMBER OF DATA ROWS” box.
– 5. Click OK.
Steps
Results
 Copying data to Minitab
• Copying data to Minitab works like copying data to any
other type of spreadsheet (eg. Excel).
– Copy the data you wish to use in Minitab.
– Go to the position where you want to copy the data in
the desired Minitab worksheet. If you wish to paste a
cell with a Header or Name, make sure that you stand
in the variable name cell (cell below the number of the
column C1, C2, etc).
– Go to EDIT -> PASTE CELLS to paste the data.
– Sometimes when you copy data, Minitab reads it in a
wrong format, eg. As a text when is numeric. To solve
this problem, select the problematic column(s) and go to
DATA -> CHANGE DATA TYPE -> CHOOSE THE
DESIRED FORMAT. The most useful format is
numeric.
 Copying data to Minitab Cont..
The following dialog box appears. Choose the variables you want to modify
and where you want to store them. The storage variables can be the same
variables as the ones you are modifying.
Then hit OK.
 Saving data
• You can save two different things in Minitab. You can save
the worksheet by itself, or the entire project. Saving the
worksheet as a separate file is a very good habit. That way
you have the data stored in a place where you can always
go back to it, even if the data you are working with in a
given project is corrupted. To save the data in a worksheet
by itself,
– 1. Select FILE > SAVE CURRENT WORKSHEET AS.
– 2. Use the arrow beside the Save in field to select the Floppy (A) or
location of your diskette.
– 3. In the File Name field type the name of the worksheet. Minitab
will automatically add the extension MTW for Minitab worksheet.
– 4. Click Save.
 Doing Calculations with variables

• Minitab allows you to do calculations with the variables that

you are using. For example you can add and multiply
variables.
• In order to do these calculations you should go to CALC ->
CALCULATOR
 Calculator Dialog Box
• The following dialog box appears
This is basically a calculator that
allows doing many calculations
with the variables. Basic
functions are found in the
number pad and more
sophisticated ones are found in
the functions box to the right of
the number pad.
• To make sure that your results
is not overwriting a variable,
name a new variable in the
“STORE RESULTS IN
VAVRIABLE” field in the top of
the calculator.
 Adding variables: Calculator
• To add variables name the
variable where you want to
store the results.
• Select the first variable, press
the “+” sign and select the
second variable (and so on for
more than two variables). You
should obtain something
similar to the window in the
right
 Results
The result will then be shown in the worksheet window.
 Taking logarithms : Calculator
• Look for the “NATURAL LOG” or
“LOG BASE 10” (depending on the
one you need) in the function list. A
shortcut to finding the functions is to
choose “LOGARITHM” from the
function drop down menu.
• Inside the parenthesis, change
number for the variable name.
Highlighting “NUMBER” and then
selecting the variable you want to
modify does this.
• Make sure that you have defined a
variable where you want to store
results, by putting the name in the
“STORE RESULT IN VARIABLE”
box.
 Results
• The result will appear in the worksheet window.
 Logical functions: Calculator
• Some statistical analysis will need to separate by groups
according to characteristics that are contained in the data.
Logical functions are particularly useful in these cases.
– Choose the variable you want to do the logical test to. Here
we are looking at the “SEX” variable.
– Choose the logical test you want to use. Here we want to
see which observations have the variable “SEX” equal 1.
That is, which observations are males.
– Make sure that you have indicated a variable in which to
store your results, by typing the name of your result
variable in the “STORE RESULT IN VARIABLE” box.
– Please see the next slide for reference.
 Interpretation and Results.
The result variable will be a binary variable (variable of 1s and 0s)
where 1 indicates the logical test is true and 0 the test is false. The
result variable will appear in the Worksheet window.
Analysis Of Data
 Step: 1 Entry of Data
• You can enter data in a Minitab worksheet in the
following ways:

– Type the data directly into the worksheet.

– Copy and paste the data from other applications.
– Import the data from Microsoft Excel files or text files.

After your data are in Minitab, you might need to

edit cells or reorganize columns and rows to prepare
the data for analysis. Some common manipulations
are stacking, sub setting, specifying column names,
and editing data values.
Statistical Tools
 Descriptive Statistics
Descriptive statistics are brief descriptive coefficients that
summarize a given data set, which can be either a
representation of the entire population or a sample of it.

Descriptive statistics are broken down into measures of

central tendency and measures of variability, or spread.

Measures of central tendency include the mean, median

and mode, while measures of variability include
the standard deviation or variance, the minimum and
maximum variables, and the kurtosis and skewness.
 Types of Descriptive Analysis
• Central Tendency. The central tendency of a distribution is
an estimate of the "center" of a distribution of values.
There are three major types of estimates of central
tendency:
– Mean
– Median
– Mode

• Dispersion. Dispersion refers to the spread of the values

around the central tendency.
– Standard Deviation
– Range
 Central Tendency: Mean
• Mean or average is probably the most commonly used
method of describing central tendency. To compute the
mean all you do is add up all the values and divide by
the number of values.

– For example, the mean or average quiz score is determined

by summing all the scores and dividing by the number of
students taking the exam. For example, consider the test
score values:

15, 20, 21, 20, 36, 15, 25, 15

The sum of these 8 values is 167, so the mean is 167/8 = 20.875.

 Central Tendency: Median
• The Median is the score found at the exact middle of the
set of values. One way to compute the median is to list all
scores in numerical order, and then locate the score in the
center of the sample.
– For example, if there are 500 scores in the list, score #250
would be the median. If we order the 8 scores shown above,
we would get:
15,15,15,20,20,21,25,36

– There are 8 scores and score #4 and #5 represent the halfway

point. Since both of these scores are 20, the median is 20. If
the two middle scores had different values, you would have to
interpolate to determine the median.
 Central Tendency: Mode
• The mode is the most frequently occurring value in the set
of scores. To determine the mode, you might again order
the scores as shown above, and then count each one. The
most frequently occurring value is the mode.

– In our example, the value 15 occurs three times and is the

model. In some distributions there is more than one modal
value. For instance, in a bimodal distribution there are two
values that occur most frequently.

• Notice that for the same set of 8 scores we got three

different values -- 20.875, 20, and 15 -- for the mean,
median and mode respectively. If the distribution is truly
normal (i.e., bell-shaped), the mean, median and mode are
all equal to each other.
 Dispersion: Standard Deviation
• The standard deviation is a measure of the spread of scores
within a set of data.
• The sample standard deviation formula is:

The population standard deviation formula is:

where,
s = sample standard deviation
n = number of scores in sample.
X =Sample Mean
σ = population standard deviation
Steps for Descriptive Statistics
Enter the column headings.
Column headings must be entered above Row 1.
Example:
• Enter “Temperature (F)” in the first cell in Column
1. *The first cell is above Row 1.
• Enter “Water Consumption (ounces)” in first cell in
Column 2. *The first cell is above Row 2. Enter the
data.
• Enter the corresponding temperatures and water
consumption in the appropriate column as shown.
Do not change the order of the items. Make sure the
items were entered as numbers not text.
Steps for Descriptive Statistics
Go to STATS -> Basic STATISTICS -> DISPLAY DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
2. And a prompt window should appear. In the window select the variable(s)
you want to analyze and click ok.

In the Variables box, select C1 (Temperature).

3. Click OK.
4. Look in the Session window. You should see the following display
 Results

Terms in the output and some definitions

• N = number of data items in the sample that
• N* = number of items in the sample that are missing data (N* does not
show up when all the items in the sample have data, as in our example.)
• Mean = "average"
• Median = "middle number"
• TrMean= the 5% Trimmed Mean
• StDev = standard deviation
• SE Mean = standard error of the mean = standard deviation divided by the
square root of the sample size.
• Minimum = smallest data value • Maximum = largest data value • Q1 =
25th percentile = first quartile • Q3 = 75th percentile = third quartile
 Graphical Analysis
Go to STATS -> Graphical Summary
2. And a prompt window should appear. In the window select the
variable(s) you want to analyze and click ok.

In the Variables box, select C1 (Temperature).

3. Click OK.
4. Look in the Session window. You should see the following display
 Histogram
• A histogram is a graph that you can use to assess
the shape and spread of continuous sample data.
You might create a histogram before or during an
analysis to help confirm assumptions and guide
additional analyses.
• To draw a histogram, Minitab divides sample
values into intervals called bins. By default, each
bar on the histogram represents the number of
observations falling within a bin (the frequency).
Minitab automatically determines an optimal
number of bins, but you can edit the number of
bins in addition to the intervals covered by each.
Go to STATS -> Histograms
1. And a prompt window should appear. In the window select the Histogram you
want to analyze and click ok.
1. And a prompt window should appear. In the window select the variable(s)
you want to analyze and click ok.

In the Variables box, select Depth and Ra.

2. Click OK.
1. Click on Multiple Graph
In the Box select graph you want to plot.

3. Click OK.
Result
 BoX Plot
• Box plots are drawn for groups of scale scores. They enable us to
study the distributional characteristics of a group of scores as
well as the level of the scores.
• To begin with, scores are sorted. Then four equal sized groups are
made from the ordered scores. That is, 25% of all scores are
placed in each group. The lines dividing the groups are called
quartiles, and the groups are referred to as quartile groups.
Usually we label these groups 1 to 4 starting at the bottom.
 Definitions

• Median -The median (middle quartile) marks the mid-point of the data
and is shown by the line that divides the box into two parts. Half the
scores are greater than or equal to this value and half are less.
• Inter-quartile range- The middle “box” represents the middle 50% of
scores for the group. The range of scores from lower to upper quartile is
referred to as the inter-quartile range. The middle 50% of scores fall
within the inter-quartile range.
• Upper quartile - Seventy-five percent of the scores fall below the upper
quartile.
• Lower quartile - Twenty-five percent of scores fall below the lower
quartile.
• Whiskers - The upper and lower whiskers represent scores outside the
middle 50%. Whiskers often (but not always) stretch over a wider range
of scores than the middle quartile groups.
 BoX Plot
Go to STATS -> Box Plot
1. And a prompt window should appear. In the window select the variable(s) you want
to analyze and click ok.

In the Variables box, select Ra.

Categorical Variables Feed Depth

2. Click OK.
Result
 SAVING DATA AND ANALYSIS
• Select FILE > SAVE CURRENT WORKSHEET AS.

• Use the arrow beside the Save in field to select the

Floppy (A) or location of your diskette.

• In the File Name field type the name of the

worksheet. Minitab will automatically add the
extension MTW for Minitab worksheet.

• Click Save
Thank you