Manage characteristics

The workspace shows the name, description, type, severity, and other details of the variables and attributes. You can create, modify or delete a characteristic.

You must provide the following information to save either a variable or an attribute characteristic:

• Name

  The name of the characteristic.

• Type

  The type of the characteristic:

  • Variable: Supports a floating point number to record product or process data such as temperature, pressure, diameter, etc.

  • Counted Attribute: Used to enter a count of defects found on a unit.

  • Binary Attribute: Used to determine whether a condition exists or whether the unit being inspected is defective. This is a count of defective units for a specific flaw.

• Unit of Measure

  The unit of measure of a characteristic.

• Severity

  The severity options can be modified through language strings. The default options are:

  • Unused: Specifies the characteristic is not available for data entry at run time and is not included in the new samples that are generated. It is retained for historical reasons.

  • Not Monitored: Specifies the characteristic is available for recording data at run time, but no run rule violations are evaluated.

  • Non-Key: Specifies the characteristic is available for recording values and checking run rules.

  • Key: Specifies the characteristic is available for recording values and checking run rules. If a run rule is violated and there are no out-of-control conditions for a critical characteristic nor out-of-spec conditions for either a key or critical characteristic, the result is Out Of Control - Key.

  • Critical: Specifies the characteristic is available for recording values and checking run rules. If a run rule is violated and there are no out-of-spec conditions for a critical characteristic, the result is Out Of Control - Critical.

• Default Chart Type

  The SPC charting to be used while evaluating run rule violations. The options depend on the type of characteristic.

  If the characteristic type is variable, then the default chart type can have X-Bar, X-Individual, and Moving Average. If the characteristic type is binary attribute, then the default chart type can have p or np. If the characteristic type is counted attribute, then the default chart type can have c, u, and DPMO.

• Number of Decimals

  The number of decimals allowed for entering variable characteristic results, the number of decimals allowed for entering QM Specification settings for target, upper, and lower specifications, data entry and control limits, and the number of decimals displayed in a chart for fields like control limits (applicable to both variables and attributes). The maximum number of decimal places supported is 6.

  If the characteristic type is attribute, then the decimals apply only to p, u, DPMO charts, and statistics.

• Automatic Characteristic Collection

  Enables the automatic collection of data within the Sample Recording Object (SRO) and the time interval between measurements within a sample. When a sample transitions to the ready state, at run time, the SRO records all characteristics marked for automatic collection. If multiple measurements are required, an initial measurement is immediately recorded. This is followed by the measurements recorded at a specified time interval. If you select this option, you cannot manually enter data for this characteristic available in the Sample Viewer .NET control.

• Filter by options

  You can filter by:

  • Entity ID

  • Item ID

  • Work Order ID

  • Operation ID

  • Process ID

  • Segment Requirement ID

  • Segment Response ID

  • Spare1, Spare2, Spare3, and Spare4

    These options determine the following:

  • Data that is to be returned while analyzing rule violations when new data is saved.

  • Data that is to be displayed in a chart of the characteristic.

    For example, if an operator enters new data for a characteristic, the new data will have contextual information of the entity and possible context of item that is produced, work order running on the entity, process and operation currently being performed, the S95 data or spare fields provided by the user. When the characteristic data is evaluated for a rule violation such as 4 of 5 outside 1 standard deviation, the software retrieves prior results for the characteristic. The filter_by fields filter the returned values to only include those records which have the same value as the specified filter_by fields. If entity and item are enabled as filter fields, then the query retrieves historical records having the same entity and item as the record being saved.

The optional information for defining a characteristic are: description, run rule exceptions, spare fields, and filter_by options.