# Software for learning statistical quality control

I'm taking a course in Statistical Quality Control as an elective in my masters program. We're using Montgomery's Introduction to Statistical Quality Control, 6th Edition.

The book uses minitab throughout and the professor would like us to use minitab to follow along with the examples. He did however say we were free to use any software we are comfortable with. I haven't used minitab since I took AP stats some time ago in high school so I would like to avoid it if possible. The rest of our program is strongly based in SAS and a couple of courses use R. So that means this is pretty much the only class I'll use minitab in if I go that route. If at all possible I'd like to wean myself off of SAS since I may not always have access to an academic license and use R exclusively since I support open source software.

Are there any QC specific references or special packages for R? If so are there any that might be comparable to the Montgomery text at least topically if not depth of content? Should I just bite the proverbial bullet and buy/rent an academic copy of Minitab?

The qcc package comes to mind. A quick search through the packages list at http://cran.r-project.org/ shows other packages that may be helpful: graphicsQC, IQCC, qualityTools, SixSigma, and two Rcmdr plugins.