Trend viewer: see what’s trending in your Texture Analysis data

November 2022

Exponent Connect software has a feature that you may not be aware of: Trend Viewer. This relatively new feature allows you to view trends that may (or ‘may not’) be occurring in your texture analysis data.

In the background of Exponent a 'trend' spreadsheet automatically runs (in conjunction with any other results files you have set up to collect data). The trend spreadsheet is set up to configure the data you wish to monitor e.g. maximum force, and over the time scale you wish to monitor and compare batches.

Typically, you might be interested to compare batch data over a specific period of time, e.g. look at collected data throughout the day, for a specific shift or see the trend over the course of the week for the data you are most interested in, e.g. the firmness of your cookie dough. You may additionally choose to display acceptance bands to see if your data falls within an expected quality range and you may modify the way you wish to visualise your data.

Examples of how your daily captured data may look are shown below:

The mean of the values is shown as the central horizontal line. Acceptance band values are specified by the user based on previous data collected in the test method development stage to establish the optimum range for that particular product. These values may be adjusted at any time to narrow the specification for the production of a higher quality product.

Data can be shown as either a line graph (above) or a scatter graph (below).

This could be used for reference or inclusion in a quality control test report.

To see how this feature could work for you using Exponent Connect software you will need to update to the current software version – to do this go to our software download page. When you’re ready you can watch our video to see how to set it up.