Key terms for measurement system analysis (MSA) for continuous data

- When I'm in a fitness and weight loss program,…I want to know that I can trust my weight measurements,…regardless of whether I weigh myself at home,…or have a nurse do it at my doctor's office,…or by officials at the Olympics.…The measurement system must be valid…and include everything, the instruments,…the operator, the collection procedures…to measure and record data.…In Six Sigma projects, we also use a technique called…the Measurement System Analysis or MSA for short.…MSA is done early during the measure phase,…so that any data to be collected or used is valid.…

Let's take a look at using MSA for continuous data.…When measurements are made, the variation that's observed…consists of two major components,…the actual part-to-part variation…and the measurement system variation or error.…Ideally the measurement system variation should be zero,…so that the observed equals the actuals,…but there's always going to be…some measurement system variation.…Hopefully it's a minimal percentage…compared to the total variances observed.…