THE BASICS OF GAGE

R&R
Calibration alone wont produce quality measurements; even when perfectly
accurate, a gage can be unacceptable for measuring a product or process. Thats
where Gage R&R studies come in. Nearly every manufacturing company is required
to conduct these studies, the many benefits gleaned from which range from product
acceptance measurements and reliable control charts to objective equipment
selection criteria and identifying the need for operator training. More importantly,
however, this single study may be the only chance to find measurement quality
problems. Todays software makes Gage R&R data entry and calculation easy, but
learning to effectively interpret the results is imperative.

The Basics
The method is to measure variables of production measuring processes. The
primary variables are repeatability and reproducibility (R&R). The purpose is to
confirm that variation is not excessive or to take action if variation is found to be
excessive. This is required for each production measuring process, but not for each
gage - you might have 3,000 gages and only 200 production measuring processes.

Who does it?

Choose three people who do the measurements in production. These might be
production people, quality inspectors or lab technicians, depending on the situation.
(During the try-out phase of a new part, you may have to use substitutes for the
people who will actually do the measurements in the future.) It doesnt matter who
collects the data. A calibration technician would often be a good choice. He or she
would serve as a resource to answer questions and would have access to gage R&R
software.

What do they have to know?

The people who do the measurement have to know how to measure, of course.
They also need to take precautions to make sure they never know which part they
are measuring. The parts have to be temporarily numbered in a way in which they
can avoid knowing which number is being measured. Operators can often influence
a gage to a considerable extent. Just knowing what to expect will tend to reduce the
variation. This can happen even if an operator is consciously trying not to do so.

Setting up the Study

Normal sample sizes are 10 parts, 3 operators and 3 trials for a total of 90
measurements. Smaller sample sizes can be used if there is a reason. For example,
you have only 8 parts and 2 operators or the trials are very expensive.

Collecting the Data

The person collecting the data should present the parts in random order, but record
the measurements according to the temporary part number. In Figure 1, data for a
typical gage R&R study has been entered into GAGEtrak software.

Choosing a Calculation Method

There are three ways to calculate gage R&R results. The most familiar method is not
the best. The familiar method is called average and range, or long AIAG. This
method is intended for spread sheets or pocket calculators, but it is not
recommended for professional software. The average and range method assumes
that an error term called appraiser part interaction equals zero. If this
assumption is not true (and it sometimes isnt), then the calculations will not be
reliable. A second method is called range, or short AIAG. It is reserved for
special situations. This article will use the work-horse method called ANOVA which
stands for analysis of variance. When using computer software, we should typically
choose ANOVA.

Evaluating the Results

Figure 2 evaluates the results in two different ways. The % of Tol column evaluates
the measurement process in terms of capability to determine whether parts meet
tolerance. GRR% of Tol = 13.5% which is fairly good. GRR is the combined

uncertainty (i.e., variation) including repeatability on production parts,

reproducibility and appraiser part interaction. GRR is summed by a special
method called RSS (root sum square). The individual variables are described
following Figure 2. The % of TV column evaluates the measurement process in terms
of capability to detect changes in total variation (TV, an estimate of process
variation). GRR% of TV = 32.2% which is not acceptable. Therefore, if we need a
gage to use for experiments to reduce process variation we should choose a
different gage for that purpose. If we need a gage only to determine whether parts
meet tolerance, this gage will likely be adequate.

Description of Variables
Repeatability: Variation that is observed when one or more operators repeat the
same measurement, on the same part and characteristic, using the same gage. This
particular measure of variation does not distinguish between operators.
Repeatability is not always influenced by human (operator) variation. To see
whether human variation may be a repeatability issue, view the softwares
repeatability range control chart. Reproducibility: Additional variation that is
observed when multiple operators are unable to reproduce the same test-group
average within limits predicted by repeatability. Appraiser Part Interaction:
Additional variation that is observed when multiple operators are unable to
reproduce the same pattern of part variation within limits predicted by repeatability.
Part-to-part: Either the actual variation (% TV column), or the allowable variation (%
Tol column), in the test parts the gage is trying to measure.

Interpreting Gage Capability Measures

A few companies prefer to use number of distinct categories (ndc) instead of GRR
%. We can visualize ndc as categories in an imaginary histogram. As GRR% gets
smaller, the categories also get smaller and there is room for more categories.
Using ndc will make no difference to acceptance decisions, with one potential
exception: Users of ndc may choose to define not acceptable as ndc less than 5
categories. In that case, the corresponding rejection value would be GRR% more
than 27%. Figure 4 shows an example of visualizing gage capability measures with
an imaginary histogram. In this example there are 9 categories associated with the
tolerance, and 3 categories associated with TV (total variation). We can see that we
have a pretty good idea whether the measurements do, or dont, meet tolerance.
We can also see that 3 categories give us only a very crude picture of the process
variation. (But, the gage couldnt reliably support smaller categories.) We can also
represent GRR% of tolerance on our imaginary histogram as two zones of doubt,
each centered on a specification limit. If the measurements should drift into one of
these danger zones, sometimes the measured value and the true value would be
on opposite sides of the limit, causing a wrong decision. For 9 categories, the
corresponding value of GRR% of tolerance is 15.5% for each zone.

How do Gage Capability Measures Work?

There are three variables. One variable is GRR which, of course, is a combination of
variables. The other two variables are part variation (PV) and total variation (TV). TV
is usually an estimate of process variation, or tolerance / 6, depending on the
purpose of the gauge. These variables are related by the formula GRR2 + PV2 =
TV2 . This relationship can be modeled as three sides of a right triangle: Gage
capability can be measured by the ratio of any two sides of the triangle, or the ratio
of the squares of any two sides. The most popular ratio is a smaller-is-better ratio:
GRR% = 100 ( GRR / TV ) The second most popular ratio is a larger-is-better ratio:
number of distinct categories = 1.41 ( PV / GRR ) You could use either one, or both,
according to preference.