21 March 2016: Markus Pfirsching

One of the most frequent tasks we face in projects is to provide recorded measurement information to the Q-DAS software. However, there are different ways to transfer data – sometimes a transfer takes place immediately and sometimes it is very diffcult and takes a lot of time. This article offers the most important facts regarding data transfers from different systems.

First, we assume that the term “data transfer” implies the application of recorded information and measured values referring to a test plan. This assumption leads to the question about the contents a data set has to include for Q-DAS. Since our target is statistical process analysis, we need some specifc information. We at least require
• product and part information (number, description …)
• characteristic information (description, tolerances …)
• measured value information (measured value, time …).

These pieces of information are enough to make a statistical evaluation. You may still store further information on the product, characteristic or measured value level, such as order, batch, customer, operator, etc. They might become quite interesting later on when you want to flter data.

Since we assume that the Q-DAS software does not record the data in this case, the respective third-party system already had to record the required information so that the data are physically available. You either transfer these data by providing the corresponding fles or you save them directly to a database. There is no other alternative.

First case: file containing all required information

A typical example is the application of a coordinate measuring machine. The measuring program has already defned the measurement procedure, i.e. an operator specifed the part and characteristics to be measured and added the respective measured values after the measurement. All this information is exported after the end of the measurement, saved to a fle and stored in a folder.

So far, so good. You would be done if there was only one uniform data format worldwide. However, this is not the case. Although the contents are the same, each manufacturer writes the information in a different way to a file. Even when they select a CSV format (comma separated values) for the output, the format does not defne the positions of the contents.