MEASUREMENT SYSTEM ANALYSIS

1. Measurement System Analysis

Measurement system analysis involves validating the measurement system. Lord Kelvin said, the
grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient
long continued labor in shifting of numerical results. At the highest level of the measuring system
there are handful of key questions that we must address. These questions seem rather intuitive
anD even obvious but we do find the answers to these questions can be harder to understand
than we may suspect once we dig into the details of the process we are accessing. Ultimately our
aim is one of process effectiveness or freedom from deficiencies. Are we capturing the correct
data? Does the data reflect what is happening? Can we detect any changes in the process? Can
we identify the sources of measurement error? And System Effectiveness which refers to the
validity and reference of the measure to customer needs, these are measures external to the
process that help to assist the outcome. Such as is the systems stable over time is it capable of
generating and measuring data to support your decisions. And can the measurement system be
improved? Or the possible sources of variation within the measurement system, there are
sources of variation from the operator or the person actually conducting the measurements, or
the gage or the equipment used to measure, as well as other sources of environmental reasons.
Accuracy of an instrument sustain through calibration. An instrument's performance can often
drift over time to you to where Temperature changes or barometric pressure changes. It is
necessary to compare the measuring device to that of a known standard through operational
definition. How often calibration is needed is based on how much drift is being tolerated over
time. Calibration seeks to understand the mean or average output of the instrument, not the
variation. Calibration helps us uncover measurement system bias. A shift in the mean is detected
and adjustments are made to re-center the instrument. From this equation, you can see that by
minimizing the measurement error, the observed value becomes closer to the true value.
Accuracy is simply how close the agreement is between the mean output of the measuring
device to that of a reference or a standard value. Sometimes you will see accuracy denoted as a
range or a tolerance, such as plus or minus one-thousands of an inch. Accuracy seeks to
understand the mean of the instrument, not the variation. Precision is different from accuracy,
precision is the closeness of repeated readings to each other and not to the standard. Precision
helps helps process owners understand random error which is part of the Measurement system
variation. Precision is used to calculate the PT ratio. Seeing on the gage or on our video. The
prime contributor towards total variation is measurement system variation. Detecting actual
process
variation's very difficult. You can see from this example that the blue curve Represents the
observed variation in the collection of data. The red curve represents the measurement system
variation from the repeated measuring of the measuring devices. The green curve represents the
actual process variation. The purpose of the precision is to approach the green curve as close as
possible to identify true variation of the mean. Here's a quick illustration on a difference between
Precision and Accuracy. Using Target Analogy you can see the first target as where the arrows
were precise, but not accurate missing the balls eye. A graphical view to the right indicates a
screw to the right from the true value of the bull's eye, in the second target you say more arrows
around the bull's eye but not very precise. The graphical view to the right denotes the main is
aligned with the true main, however the variation is spread out Indicated by the flatten curve.
The third target, the arrows are both precise and accurate hitting the bull's eye. The graphical
view shows the aligned observational main together the true main. It also denotes minimal
variability this a higher peak with less deviation or spread. Stability is the drift and the absolute
value over time with a gauge. When we examine the difference In the average of at least two
sets of measurements obtained with the same gage on the same product at the different times,
we refer of this is Gage Stability. The purpose of Calibration System is to eliminate stability errors
by identifying, adjusting, and reducing these differences. Statistical Process Control techniques
are used to control the stability of the process. Note that proper calibration can help eliminate
stability error. Gage bias is defined as the difference between the observed mean of the
measurements and a known standard. NIST, or the National Institute of Standards and
Technology maintains these standards. It is often used interchangeable with precision. Bias has a
direction like the bias is plus 25 thousandths of an inch. Periodic calibrations against the standard
can correct bias. Gage linearity is measuring how accurate the instrument, device or gage is
during the span. Or measuring range of the equipment. Periodic calibration can also eliminate
linearity issues over a wide range of measurements. In essence, you can see from the illustration,
that an instrument can produced two different biases over the observable range of time or
linearity in consistencies.
2. Measurement System Analysis
Beyond accuracy, we must focus our attention on the variation inherent to the measurement
system. Variation is inherent to the system and we need to understand this variation due to the
measurement system itself. This opens the door to gauge repeatability and reproducibility.
Gauge repeatability is the variation in instruments obtained when one operator uses the same
gauge for measuring the identical characteristics of the same products. The variance affected by
the trial to trial measurements is the repeatability. Gauge Reproducibility is the variation in the
average of measurements made by different operators using the same gauge when measuring
identical characteristics of the same outputs. The variance affected by the operator or operator
measurements is the reproducibility. The total 100 percent variability found in the system is
equal to the actual part to part process variation, is what we wish to see and the measurement
system which is preventing us from seeing a clear picture of what's going on. The measurement
variability branch includes both the gauge variability and the operator variability. The
repeatability variation occurs with the gauge variability and the reproducibility variation occurs
within operator variability. Reproducibility can be further broken down by the operator to other
operators and operator by part. Variation due to the operator is called reproducibility. Variation
due to the gauge system is called repeatability. This is where gauge R&R comes from.
Measurement error sum together. A set of measurements are taken. We take several
measurements of the same product with the same gauge. This forms a distribution. We repeat
this for several measurements of several products to produce multiple distributions. If we plot
the sum of these distributions, we would see that the total observed variation distribution. The
element we want to uncover is the actual part to part variation. Measurement variation is often
expressed as a ratio of precision and to tolerance or P over T. The total variation can be replaced
by one-sixth of the tolerance. So you have the percentage gauge R&R formula is, 100 times the
GRR divided by the tolerance divided by six. Six is used to represent 99.73 percent of the total
variation or six standard deviations. This is where we get six sigma. The illustration denotes that
the standard normal curve indicating that the area below the curve equals one but the plus or
minus three sigma, or standard deviations from the mean or six sigma, accounts for the
confidence of capturing 99.73 percent of the total variation. Let's recap. The total variation is the
sum of the Part to Part Variability, or the actual variability and the Measurement Variability.
Gauge R&R determines the amount of variation in the observed measurements due to the
Operators and the Equipment. Calibration insures the equipment mean readings are matched to
known standards. What remains is our actual process variation. Identifying Bias, Stability, and
Linearity all help to improve repeatability measurements. Various statistical calculations systems
such as Minitab or Microsoft Excel can perform needed distribution analysis. Statistical process
control sometimes referred to as statistical quality control uses the X bar and R chart method to
identify variability.