Plotting waste chart help requested

We manufacture coated paper products. We want to chart waste for each product that we manufacture. On this chart we will have date of manufacture and the waste for that run. Simple I know what my inputs and outputs are. This chart is no big deal. I have tab for each product that we make with this data and resulting chart.

Now we want a chart with all products. I am looking for a simple way combining the different tabs. From there, creating the chart is easy.

My orginal thought was to just use a simple formula to collect the information from each tab and plot. But, then I'll end up with huge holes in the time line as products are made as needed and not all products are made each time we coat paper.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Originally Posted by Shocked

We manufacture coated paper products. We want to chart waste for each product that we manufacture. On this chart we will have date of manufacture and the waste for that run. Simple I know what my inputs and outputs are. This chart is no big deal. I have tab for each product that we make with this data and resulting chart.

Now we want a chart with all products. I am looking for a simple way combining the different tabs. From there, creating the chart is easy.

My orginal thought was to just use a simple formula to collect the information from each tab and plot. But, then I'll end up with huge holes in the time line as products are made as needed and not all products are made each time we coat paper.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Confusion is good

Do you want to chart the complete timeline/production waste? - (on a wide screen) which will naturally leave blanks where no production for that product occurs, or do you want to chart the comparative 'waste per product', in which case gather the 'last run' for the item and the date of that run, probably merge the date into the product name for the chart.

Alternately you can gather the average of (say) the last 5 runs of each product etc.

hth
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I think I may have figured out how to present my data. The problem is I have to transfer the data (date and waste %) to an "all product" sheet and then chart from there. Date in column a, cheerios in column b, quisp in c and so on. In the last column, I have 5% down the entire range as our target.

I am collecting other information for data analysis down the road as well. but for now, we want to get a feel for where we are for each product, and then look at means to improve (and save $).

Is there a way to chart columns and lines having only the 5% column as line an the rest (6-8) charted as columns. I have tried several times and get like 5 columns and the rest as lines or datapoints. What I settled on for now is a column chart with a drawn line 5% representing our target.

Originally Posted by Shocked

I think I may have figured out how to present my data. The problem is I have to transfer the data (date and waste %) to an "all product" sheet and then chart from there. Date in column a, cheerios in column b, quisp in c and so on. In the last column, I have 5% down the entire range as our target.

I am collecting other information for data analysis down the road as well. but for now, we want to get a feel for where we are for each product, and then look at means to improve (and save $).

Is there a way to chart columns and lines having only the 5% column as line an the rest (6-8) charted as columns. I have tried several times and get like 5 columns and the rest as lines or datapoints. What I settled on for now is a column chart with a drawn line 5% representing our target.

No, but perhaps to 'green' the 5% and 'red' the rest could help, asin the attached (something I copied from somewhere).

Originally designed so that the 'larger' came first, be it the Red B or the Green A, this might be useful to you for the 'above and below' 5% figures.

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Red and green, hmmm. That thought had not crossed mind.

Thanks Bryan.