Process control menus answer the question, «Is my process within tolerance?» The Tolerance menu answers the question that comes before it—one that is all too often addressed based on intuition: «What tolerance should be required, and for which characteristic?»
The problem is always the same. A characteristic Y must remain within its specification—whether it’s stiffness, clearance, or performance. You cannot directly control Y; instead, you control the X characteristics that you manufacture and measure. Transferring the tolerance means translating the requirement for Y into requirements for the X characteristics, without demanding more than necessary or less than sufficient.
There are two ways to answer, depending on what you know about the relationship between X and Y:
- You have measurements but no equations: Spécigraphe fits a model to your data and derives the tolerance from it.
- You have an equation (calculation formula, dimension chain): Monte Carlo simulation generates the X values based on their tolerances and distributions, and uses them to determine the behavior of Y.
Click on the «Tolerances» menu, then click on «Specigraph» or «Monte Carlo Simulation.».