Home / Statistical Tools / MSA / Create MSA Template

Create MSA Template¶

Create MSA Template builds a blank worksheet laid out for a measurement system analysis: the columns in the right places, the gage and part information fields, space for the specification limits, and printed instructions for whoever takes the measurements.

Find it at QXL Stat Tools > MSA / Gage R&R > Create MSA Template.

Use it before you collect data. Once the sheet is filled in, run the analysis on it directly.

When to use it¶

Use it when you are planning a study and want the data collection sheet laid out correctly, rather than building the columns by hand. It is optional: the analysis tools read any worksheet with the right columns, however it was made.

The advantage of a template is that the analysis can be launched straight from it. The template records the specification limits and gage information under defined names, and the analysis reads them back, so those do not have to be re-entered.

A template written by the previous version of Quantum XL runs unchanged. The first template on a sheet uses the same defined names the older version used, so a one-template sheet made by either version is the same sheet, and the v18 analyses read it without conversion. A second and any later template on the same sheet is numbered, which is necessary because a worksheet can hold each name once.

What it produces¶

A template block written onto the worksheet, containing:

a data table sized to the number of operators, parts and replications you asked for, with one column per operator trial
a gage and part information area, with fields for the specification limits, the date and who performed the study
printed instructions beside the table, describing what to do in numbered steps

You can add more than one template to the same sheet with Add Template, and each block is written below the previous one. Remove deletes the selected template from the list before the sheet is written.

The instructions it writes¶

The instructions are printed on the sheet next to the table, so the person taking the measurements does not need the help system. For a quantitative study they read:

Enter the gage and part information.

Enter the USL and LSL if known (needed for %Tolerance).

Have each operator measure each part in random order; type each result under that operator's trial column.

When the table is full, run the MSA analysis on this template.

Running the analysis from a template¶

Crossed and Nested skip the analysis dialog entirely. Launch either one with a template on the sheet and a small MSA Analysis Method dialog appears in its place, because the template has already supplied everything the Data tab would ask for. It is shown once for the whole launch, however many templates are on the sheet.

An Extended analysis opens its full dialog instead, prefilled from the template. The Model tab is where additional factors and nesting are declared, and a template cannot declare them.

The MSA Analysis Method dialog¶

Estimation Method offers the same four choices as the analysis dialog's own group, spelled the same way, and described on Crossed > Options:

Automatic (balanced: EMS; unbalanced: REML)
Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML)
Expected Mean Squares (EMS) - Equivalent to ANOVA when balanced
Xbar and Range (XbarR)

Xbar and Range (XbarR) is offered only when it can run on every template about to run. Where it cannot, the radio button is disabled and the reason is shown beneath it.

Specification Limits is a grid with one row per template about to run, under the headings Template, LSL and USL. Every row arrives prefilled from that template's own limit cells and can be edited here. A blank limit means the template has no limit on that side, and where both are given the lower must be strictly below the upper. A limit you change is written back into the template's cell, so the sheet records what actually ran; a limit you leave alone is not touched.

Display Confidence Intervals is ticked by default. Clearing it drops the confidence interval table and the interval that otherwise follows the distinct-categories count.

Display gage performance curve is cleared by default, so a template run draws the curve only when you ask for it. It is also disabled, with Not available when part variation is not representative of the population. beneath it, while the box below is ticked: the curve is drawn from the part to part standard deviation, and declaring that variation unrepresentative leaves nothing to draw it from. Your tick is kept while the box is disabled, so clearing the box below gives the choice back.

Part variation isn't representative is the same display-only choice the analysis dialog's Options tab offers as Part Variation is Not Representative of the Population, described on Crossed > Options.

Cancel abandons the whole launch and no template is run.

Where the launch leaves you. Every template on the sheet runs in the one launch, and it ends on the last results sheet it wrote, so that is the sheet in front of you when the summary box closes. When no template ran at all you are left on the sheet you started from.

The part count is read from the sheet, not remembered. The analysis counts the parts from the rows the template's grid actually covers rather than from the number of parts you asked for when the template was made, so a grid that has grown is read at its new size.

A template anchored on another worksheet is ignored. Its defined names are treated as absent, so a launch reads only the templates on the sheet you ran it from.

Attribute templates¶

The Data Format choice offers Qualitative (Attribute) as well as Quantitative (Variable). An attribute template collects pass and fail ratings rather than measured values, and it is read by the attribute MSA tools further down the MSA / Gage R&R menu rather than by Crossed, Nested or Extended.

Those attribute tools are from the previous version of Quantum XL, so they are not documented in this help system: Attribute MSA - Crosstabulations Method and Attribute MSA - Analytic Method on the same menu.