On the assessment of multivariate and multisite measurement systems

Abstract

The multivariate Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA) approval criteria proposed in literature are specifically designed for assessing measurement systems made up of a single instrument. Therefore, they may encounter difficulties in assessing multisite measurement systems where there are multiple instruments in parallel. In this work, we propose a method for assessing such complex measurement systems. Since a key assumption in multisite measurement systems is that all instruments are expected to have the same level of precision, we base our proposal on the comparison of the precisions of multivariate instruments by means of a statistical test. A simulation study is performed in order to evaluate the performances of the proposed method. The results show that the illustrated approach is effective for assessing complex measurement systems and can be useful for reducing the costs for performing multivariate MSA. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd