What's New In GageStation 3.2
Features Added to GageStation 3.2

Main Screen Improvements

Better Spec Plan Organization with Tabs
On the main screen, you can now organize your spec plan buttons and group them on tabs. You can create as many tabs as necessary in order to group your buttons. In addition, there is a new Explorer View for customers who have a lot of spec plans and want to organize the plans into folders.


Run Screen Improvements

Horizontal and Vertical Run Screen
The new run screen allows you to show the entry grid in either horizontal or vertical mode. Horizontal (same as QC-Gage 3.0) shows the grid with the parts represented in rows. Dimensions are columns. In Vertical mode, the parts are columns and the dimensions are rows. This is advantageous if you are using a checklist for measurement and there are a lot of dimensions.

One Data Collection Grid
All measurements and factors are now in one interactive data collection grid. Values are then color coded in the grid to either green (in spec) or red (out of spec) for each identification. This keeps the measurement process focused and much simpler.

QC-CALC Look Back Functionality
Spec plans can now pull back measurements from QC-CALC that were already committed and display them in the run plot as black read-only points. This allows you to see the history of your features as you measure new parts.

Delay Timer After Measurement
When you take measurements, QC-Gage immediately moves to the next measurement by default. When this happens you may not see the result in the plot before it switches to the next plot. To address this, we have added an optional delay of up to 3 seconds before moving to the next measurement. This allows you to quickly see the effects of the measurement before proceeding.



Spec Plan Improvements

New Spec Plan Wizard
We have revamped our spec plan wizard to be easier to use and more complete. As examples, you can now assign a button to the spec plan while in the wizard, all screens now have a consistent look and feel (list management with plus, pencil, and trash can), and fields that are not necessary have been hidden to decrease distractions.

Calculated Dimensions
QC-Gage now allows you to create dimensions that are based on calculations. These can either be based on an entered value or on the values of other dimensions.

Lookup Tables
In the Calculated Dimensions, you can create shared lookup tables. These lookup tables can be queried as a part of the calculation in order to obtain constant values. For instance, the first dimension may be the temperature. The second dimension may then look up a constant based on the temperature and material in order to get the expansion coefficient.

Factor Level Options
Unlike QC-Gage 3.0 where the options applied to all factors as a group, all factor related flags are now at the individual factor level. These include the "Visible" flag, the "Clear value on send" flag, the "Required" flag, and the "Use first value for entire batch" flag. This allows for better granularity when setting up your factors. In addition, if you use a list for your factor there is the ability to allow users to enter a value that is not a part of the list.

Save and Continue
Spec plans can now be saved and continued at a later time. This is a useful feature if you need to measure parts both before and after an operation. All you need to do is measure the part, then save and close the session. When the part is ready to be continued, simply resume the previous session for that part. Parts can be selected based on date/time or by a unique factor such as serial number.

Data Collection Order
Regardless as to how you set up the features and factors, you can change the order of their appearance during data collection. For instance, if you always want the factors to be entered before the measurements, you can simply move them to the top of the order.

Inspection Date Option
By default, the inspection date that is sent to QC-CALC is the date/time of the last measurement. This new option allows you to override this date with any date you choose. Therefore, if you have a spec plan that takes hours, you may want to use the date/time the measurements were started.

External Work Instructions Link
You can now optionally link your spec plan to an external document that contains work instructions for measuring your part. When the inspector clicks the link, it will automatically open the document.

Auto-Save/Recovery
All spec plans are now automatically saved locally each time a measurement is received. If something goes wrong in the middle of your measuring, you can always recover the measurements you took before the problem.

Spec Plan Creation Defaults
You can now set up a set of Spec Plan Creation Default settings. At the current time, this includes both QCC Look Back settings and standard factors. You set these settings once and all new spec plans then automatically inherit them as they are created. This allows you to force certain factors to be present in every spec plan.

Gage Friendly Names
QC-Gage now allows you to assign descriptive names to the gages in your shop. This way, you can positively identify the gages by nickname rather than by just the gage definition. As you enter the names, a list is automatically created so you can simply choose from the existing list in future spec plans rather than having to type the same name again.