Minitab’s acquisition of Prolink is helping manufacturers replace manual processes with real-time quality insights.
For decades, Minitab has been known for bringing statistical innovation to manufacturing. The company has long championed data-driven decision-making and has built a reputation for helping businesses move from intuition to evidence. That ethos is what drew Minitab to Prolink, a company with more than 40 years of heritage in automated data collection and shop-floor quality tools.
As Minitab explored Prolink’s technology and culture, the partnership quickly became more than a business arrangement. Together, the two organisations now deliver an integrated quality solution designed to help manufacturers digitise, automate, and modernise their processes.
“The first thing that caught our attention about Prolink was simple: they offer best-in-class automated data collection for inspection and measurement machines,” said Joshua Zable, chief financial and strategic planning officer at Minitab. “From the moment we started looking under the hood, we saw how Prolink could help our customers solve key challenges and elevate their quality initiatives.”
Prolink was founded more than 40 years ago by engineer Bruce Brigham and a small group of colleagues, later built into a trusted brand by his son, Jason Brigham, now president. During that same period, Minitab was growing its statistical software footprint. When the two companies began discussions in 2024, the mutual respect was already well established.
One of the outcomes of the collaboration has been the integration of Prolink’s SPC Office Pro with Minitab’s analytics suite. The result allows manufacturers to eliminate manual entry, connect measurement devices directly, and generate instant insights. This approach reduces the time between collecting measurements and acting on them.
“For years, Prolink’s ‘Part to Chart’ solution helped customers eliminate the tedious task of transferring data from equipment to spreadsheets to Minitab,” explained Zable. “What used to take hours now takes seconds – automating capability analyses, generating reports, and populating templates instantly.”
Prolink’s innovation extends beyond automation. Its QC Mobile platform enables engineers to share dashboards, alerts, and reports across the organisation in real time. Anyone, from plant operators to senior executives, can access live quality data directly on their devices – even by scanning a QR code at a machine. This transparency bridges the gap between the shop floor and the boardroom, empowering faster, and more informed decision-making.
The partnership has been described as a cultural fit as much as a technical one. Both companies share a commitment to innovation and customer success, a synergy that has already led to collaboration with other Minitab acquisitions such as Simul8.
“Software companies are all about people,” said Jeff Slovin, CEO of Minitab. “That’s why we were so excited to welcome the Prolink team into the Minitab family. They bring not only incredible technology, but also decades of experience and a customer-first mindset that matches our own.”
Moving beyond paper and pencil
Despite the advances of Industry 4.0, many factories still rely on paper-based record-keeping. Studies suggest up to 79 per cent of factory workers continue to log quality checks manually. This not only introduces errors but also slows down production and makes compliance difficult. Minitab and Prolink argue that digital transformation often begins by addressing this outdated approach.
Manual records risk illegible handwriting, missing entries, and misplaced data. They delay insights and put businesses at risk of compliance failures. More importantly, they frustrate workers who would rather focus on higher-value tasks than filling out logs.
“Imagine doing your current job with pencil and paper,” Zable said. “Factory workers already have high turnover rates. Why not differentiate your operation and increase their happiness quotient by eliminating manual tasks?”
Replacing paper with automated systems delivers clear benefits. Prolink’s tools allow for real-time data capture directly from Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs), Measurement gauges, and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs). This eliminates transcription errors and ensures complete, auditable records. Companies gain dashboards and alerts that deliver actionable insights instantly, making quality management proactive rather than reactive.
“By replacing pencil and paper with Prolink’s automated solutions, companies benefit from real-time monitoring, increased efficiency, and seamless compliance,” said Zable.
The high cost of slow data
Most organisations measure effectiveness and efficiency in terms of physical output, but when it comes to decision making, money talks. To provide a common business language, it is important that the effectiveness of processes be measured in financial terms.
The cost of quality is the costs incurred from failing to provide the required product in the most efficient and effective manner. And can be broken down into the cost of good quality (prevention and appraisal) and the cost of poor quality (internal and external). Investing in appraisals like production monitoring leads to a reduction in failure costs over time.
Even when manufacturers do collect digital data, many still suffer from delays. Quality teams often wait hours or even days for reports, leaving them unable to spot problems until they’ve already produced defective parts. Slow data undermines competitiveness by creating rework, scrap, and lost time.
The reliance on spreadsheets, paper logs, and disconnected systems means insights often arrive too late. In some cases, a batch may already have shipped before deviations are noticed. According to Minitab, this is one of the most common and costly traps in modern manufacturing.
“Slow, outdated data does not just create frustration. It creates waste, risk, and costly mistakes,” said Bass Masri, Solutions architect at Minitab Pty Ltd. “When your data moves slowly, your entire operation slows down.”
Real-time Statistical Process Control (SPC) offers the antidote. By connecting measurement devices directly and monitoring processes live, manufacturers can catch deviations as they happen. Automated alerts ensure operators and supervisors know immediately if a process drifts out of spec.
“That is the difference between reacting to problems and preventing them entirely,” Masri explained. “When SPC is automated and real-time, you stop playing catch-up and start staying ahead.”
The bigger picture of quality
Minitab’s view of quality extends beyond internal processes. The company stresses the importance of supplier quality programs, noting that poor inputs inevitably lead to poor outputs. In regulated industries like aerospace or medical devices, the production part approval process (PPAP)and supplier checks are mandatory, but many manufacturers remain inconsistent.
Minitab’s advice is to start simple. Acceptance sampling, combined with automated measurement and analysis, can quickly build confidence. Prolink provides the tools to capture and analyse data from incoming parts, while Minitab supports statistical sampling plans and capability studies.
“Mark Twain said it best: ‘The secret of getting ahead is getting started,’” said Zable. “Start small with sampling, then layer on analysis and capability studies. You’ll improve quality before production even begins.”
In industry jargon, “QA/QC” is often treated as a single discipline. Minitab stresses the distinction: Quality Assurance is about designing processes to prevent defects, while Quality Control is about catching them once they occur. Both are necessary, and both can be strengthened by data.
QA activities include training, auditing, and predictive analytics. QC involves inspections, testing, and analysis. Yet many organisations still focus heavily on QC while underinvesting in QA. The result is unnecessary risk and missed opportunities for prevention.
“Preventing defects is almost always more cost-effective than catching them after production,” said Zable. “Too many companies with strong QC programmes aren’t paying enough attention to QA.”
Tackling the waste problem
Waste is one of the manufacturing industry’s most enduring challenges, manifesting across materials, time, energy, and labour due to a lack in tools to act decisively. From overproduction and excess inventory to idle equipment and underutilised talent, the causes are diverse. But perhaps the biggest issue is a lack of connected data. Without real-time visibility, teams operate reactively, making it almost impossible to prevent problems before they escalate.
“When complexity meets outdated tools, progress stalls,” said Masri. “Even the most skilled teams struggle to make headway when they’re working without real-time insights or automated support.”
Minitab positions itself as an enabler of waste reduction, offering manufacturers the means to monitor quality in real time, optimise processes, and predict failures. By centralising dashboards and applying machine learning models, companies can align teams from shop floor to C-suite, reducing rework and accelerating innovation.
“Although manufacturing waste is a trillion-dollar problem, it’s also a trillion-dollar opportunity,” said Masri. “By turning complexity into insight and insight into impact, Minitab empowers teams to improve quality and build a shop floor defined by continuous improvement.”
Building the factory of the future
Minitab and Prolink describe their vision not as a leap but as a progression. Manufacturers can start small with automated data collection and grow into predictive insights and plant-wide optimisation. The tools are designed to scale, and to be accessible not just to data scientists but to frontline teams.
This vision aligns with broader trends in manufacturing. Companies face pressure to reduce costs, cut waste, and improve sustainability. Achieving those goals requires both cultural and technological change. The acquisition of Prolink by Minitab aims to deliver both – technology that works seamlessly, and a mindset that values continuous improvement.
As Slovin put it, it comes down to people as much as software. With Prolink now part of the Minitab family, the company is betting on cultural alignment as the catalyst for lasting impact in manufacturing.
