Industrial Statistics with Minitab

7.1 Introducing Values Following a Pattern

At times – for instance when working with stratified data – it is convenient to create auxiliary variables containing data following a specific pattern. Minitab provides an easy way to create such type of data columns.

Example 7.1:

Place in column C1 numeric values going from 1 to 3 so that each value appears twice and the whole sequence four times, that is: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3.

Calc > Make Patterned Data > Simple Set of Numbers

Alternatively, a more general way to create patterned data is the following.

Calc > Make Patterned Data > Arbitrary Set of Numbers

In the dialog box that appears, first click on the Help button and then click on the hypertext ‘arbitrary set of numbers’ to display a list of different ways of introducing the set of values that conform the sequence.

An alternative way to create a single sequence of consecutive numbers or with a constant increment is: First, ...