CS Odessa Ranks in Software Magazine’s 28th Annual World Software 500 for Second Time

Press release on CS Odessa making Software 500 for second year in a row.

Take our brief survey to see if you qualify for ConceptDraw Office 2 preview

Coming soon will be the new version of ConceptDraw Office 2. We have a brief survey for people who want to qualify for a preview. Launch date for ConceptDraw Office 2 has not been announced as of November 19, 2010.

Now you can access ConceptDraw MINDMAP Files on your iPhone

CMS has released a new version of their mind mapping product for the iPhone. The iThoughts version 4.0 now supports the import of ConceptDraw MINDMAP 6 files. Version 4 of iThoughts for the iPhone can be purchased on iTunes for only $7.99. For a very small price you can carry your map information with you. Link to iThoughts

Download a copy of any of the ConceptDraw products from here. http://www.conceptdraw.com/

Why Our Customers Buy ConceptDraw Products

Recently, we had 28 customers respond to a brief questionnaire about their purchase of ConceptDraw products. These 28 individuals range from single users to large, corporate organizations. We asked them to give us feedback on the performance of our products.


I would like to share with you the results of one of those questions. The question is a fill in the blank question. “I feel that the ConceptDraw product I purchased has____.”

Of all of the responses we got to that question, the four most common responses were:

-“more features than the competition” (11 responses)

-“better user experience than the competition” (10 responses)

-“better price than the competition” (5 responses)

-“higher price but more features than the competition” (2 responses)

One person commented that their ConceptDraw product has “Better Mac/Windows compatibility”.

These are just a few recent examples of why people have decided that we are the right solution for them. Call us to find out how we can be the right solution for you.

Concept Mapping Toyota’s 8-Step Lean Manufacturing Methodology

Lean Manufacturing is a core fundamental for businesses that focus on delivering a quality product to their customers, while minimizing production waste. Toyota has a variant of this called the 8-Step Process that is very popular because of its ease of implementation and success in the improvement of an existing process. The 8-Step methodology is a business philosophy that is a proven way to solve simple to complex issues that often vex companies.

The first of the 8 steps is to identify the problem by using quantifiable terms to describe the current situation. What is the problem, in what process is the problem occurring, who is involved with that process, at what point in that process is the problem occurring, , is the cause of the problem known, and what is the relative magnitude of the problem? It is important to have physical evidence of the issue, if possible. Many people will use a physical sample, photos and even drawings to describe the problem’s nature. This step of obtaining the evidence will often eliminate any false alarms that might cause an unnecessary effort.

The second step is to break down the problem. Is the problem universal, does it occur in only one plant, and does it occur on only one machine? If the problem is occurring in the field, do you have a process in place that allows you to track failures back to the process that produced the part or assembly. When a problem does occur, it is imperative that there be a path available to track from the incident to the inception.

Now that you have identified the problem, it is important to set a target. Once you have gone through the process, what is the ideal or planned outcome? This third step establishes the performance baseline and the end goal. These are two very important elements to this problem solving process.

The forth step is to find the source. What causes the problem? It is important to review the process being investigated and the current controls. Questions that can be asked are ‘What has changed?’ or ‘What anticipated event did not occur?’ If the answer is not clear, then a systemic issue exists and additional physical analysis is necessary to determine root cause. Discovery of the root cause must be accomplished to progress to any other steps.

Now we get to the problem resolution stage. In step 5 we implement corrective actions, the team defines and implements the best corrective action, and ongoing controls are implemented to make sure that the root cause has been eliminated. Once changes have been put into production, it is important to monitor the long-term effects that have been put in place. And of course, all changes implemented must be documented—the appropriate control plan, process flow documentation, and appropriate work instructions.

In step 6, it is necessary to verify that the selected corrective actions will resolve the problem and that the changes will not cause any undesirable side effects to occur.

Step 7 is the evaluation of the modified process and its results. This is a good time to look at the issue and the identified solution in its entirety. What can be learned from this important step that will have potentially a universal impact on how your business is conducted?

The final step is to standardize successful processes to build quality in to the product and to resolve any future shortcomings in the manufacturing process. Quality has such a demonstrable impact on customer buying patterns today that methodologies such as Toyota’s 8-step problem solving have been widely adopted many manufacturing organizations and the United States Air Force.

Click here to download a template for the 8-step problem solving solution.

Mindmapping for writers

If you're interested in learning more about how to use mind mapping as a tool for writing, check out my 3-part series. It can be found at:

1. The Writerly Life: Mind Mapping for Writers: If you're more artist than engineer, this approach is for you.

2. Nick Daws' Writing Blog: Mind Mapping for Writers: If you're more artist than engineer, this approach is for you.

The series takes you from brainstorming and organizing ideas to progressing from ideas in a map to words on a page.

How To Create A Visual Event Calendar Using ConceptDraw Office

Step 1. Create the events you are planning as a mind map using ConceptDraw MINDMAP.

Step 2. Select all topics by pressing Ctrl+A and then copy the map.

Step 3. Open ConceptDraw PRO and create a new document using the Calendar template from the Template Gallery. The Calendar template is located inside the Project Management category of the Template Gallery.

Step 4. Press Ctrl+V to paste the copied mind map information into the ConceptDraw PRO document workspace.

Step 5. Next drag and drop calendar shapes from the Calendars library to the document workspace for each topic of the mind map.

Step 6. To set the required date click on the date you want to identify and then change the font attributes for that date (color, size, type style). To navigate to a different date use the Action button menu to change months and years that are presented.

Step 7. Connect the mind map topics to the calendars using the Smart Connector tool located in the ConceptDraw PRO toolbar.

Result. The finished product is now an excellent visual plan of your important activities in the visual format of mind map.

Post Script: Of course it is also possible to use ConceptDraw PRO to build a date calendar and then use that visual information in a ConceptDraw MINDMAP topic. Our ConceptDraw products have the flexibility to work the way you want to work.

 
 
 
 
 

You can find out much more about our products here on our blog, or visit our web site for detailed information on each of our products. You are able to download a no obligation 30-day trial copy from this web page.