Analysis Configuration: Alarm Options

  1. Expand the Analysis Configuration node in the tree view.
  2. Expand the SPC Characteristics node, the Calculated Variables node, and the desired Calculated Variable node.
  3. Then, select the Alarm node to display the Alarm options in the properties page.

 Note: The effects of the settings are the same as those found in the Statistica analysis - Alarms tab, accessed via the Options button within the resulting Quality Control analysis dialog box.

Log violations in .LOG file

Select this check box to store the violations (as defined by the supervisor) in a *.log file.

Browse

Click this button to search for the desired *.log file in which the violations will be logged.

Remember the last k violations in the Log file; k=.

When you choose to store violations in a *.log file, you can then specify how many violations to maintain in that file. If k = 25, only the last 25 violations will be stored in the *.log file.

Define out-of-control event (causing notification/alarm)

Use the options in this group to specify which types of samples will generate an alarm in the chart. For each event you select, specify a variety of automatic actions to take including automatically requesting input of cause/action or launching another application.

Note:  Obs. Outside specification limits (see below) is only for variable control charts.  

Check alarms hierarchically in sequence

Select this check box if you want Statistica to perform the check for alarms (violations) hierarchically.

Example:  You may want to first check whether a sample point is outside of the control limits. If it is, you may not want to check further to determine if it also is outside of the warning limits (which would be true as well). This will avoid an unnecessary sequence of actions as specified in this group box. The exact sequence in which samples are checked for an out-of-control condition can be chosen via the Check Order boxes.

Sample out of control

When this check box is selected, any sample that is out of control will be defined as an out-of-control event. In the Quality Control module, you can define out-of-control samples in many ways.

  • You can specify samples that are more than 3 sigma away from the process mean.
  • You can also use probability limits or user-specified limits to determine when a sample is out of control.

Sample outside warning limits

When this check box is selected, any sample that is outside the warning limits will be marked as an out-of-control event.

  • The warning limits can be adjusted in the Specifications properties page view for this Calculated Variable.  
  • If the Sample outside warning limits check box is selected, and no user-defined warning limits are specified, the default warning limits will be used to define this alarm.

Runs violation

When this check box is selected, any sample that violates one or more of the AT&T runs rules will be defined as an out-of control event.

You can specify the AT&T runs rules to use in the Specifications properties page view for this Calculated Variable.

Obs. outside specification limits

When this check box is selected, you can define an automatic action to take whenever an observation (such as a sample mean) is outside the specification limits defined in the Specifications properties page view for this Calculated Variable.

Define Action

For each of these events, you can click the Define Action button to specify what should occur (such as create a chart, send an email) when the respective out-of-control event arises.

 Click this button to display the Define Alarm Events dialog box to define these actions.

SVB Alarm Handler

Use SVB Handler

Select this check box to specify a Statistica Visual Basic (SVB) program that contains subroutines (user-defined event handlers) for processing the alarms.

Note: The architecture of Statistica Quality Control is such that the chart object itself will automatically issue notifications regarding out-of-control events. The SVB program specified here should contain the SVB code necessary to handle those events.

Example:  You can write a program for the out-of-control event to customize fully how the user wants to respond:

'When out-of-control points are detected, Statistica Enterprise passes

'the QC chart object to this sub-routine, along with a container of

'the sample ID of the out-of-control points.

'Obj: the QC chart object

'SampleID: container of sample ID's of the out-of-control points

Private Sub SourceObj_SampleOutOfControl(ByVal Obj As Object, SampleID() As String, PartId() As String, ByVal NewSample As Boolean, ByVal flags As Long)

        'get the QC info class

        Dim oQCInfo As IQCVCharts

        Set oQCInfo = Obj.ChartServer

        'Get name of variable plotted

        Dim strVarName As String

        strVarName = oQCInfo.NameOfVariableToPlot

        'Get list of out-of-control samples

        Dim strSampleList As String

        strSampleList = "OOC samples are:" & vbCrLf

        Dim strSampleID As String

        Dim i As Long

        For i = LBound(SampleID) To UBound(SampleID)

                strSampleList = strSampleList & SampleID(i)

                If (i < UBound(SampleID)) Then

                        strSampleList = strSampleList & ", "

                End If

        Next i

End Sub
  

Browse

Click this button to search for the desired *.svx file to run when violations occur.

Check for violations

The indicated samples will be checked for out-of-control events as defined in the Define Out-of-Control group described above.

New samples only

 Select this option button to check only those samples that have not already been checked.

In order to identify new samples, one or more auto-update columns will need to be identified in the Data Configuration. If no auto update column is defined, then no samples will be checked.

All samples

Select this option button to specify that Statistica  will check the entire chart for out-of-control events.

All samples without a cause

 Select this option button to check only those out-of-control events without causes assigned to them.

Check violations for

X-bar (MA)a Chart

Select this option button to check violations for X-bar (MA) charts.

R or S (MA) Chart

Select this option button to check violations for R or S (MA) charts.

Both

Select this option button to check violations for both X-bar (MA)  and R or S (MA) charts.

Restore default

Click this button to reset all options in the Alarm properties page to the default settings