Q. What are data tags and should I be using them?

A. Data tags give you a way to label the data within a QS-Pro batch to provide additional traceability.  If your process uses, say, steel wire that comes to you on large reels, you can create data tags to represent the reels you use and apply them to the measurement data as you enter it.  If you later discover problems with some parts QS-Pro can tell you which reel the troublesome parts came from. You can create as many types of data tags as you like, tho QS-Pro was designed to operate comfortably up to around 4 or 5.  So you might tag your data with a reel number, an operator name, a machine code, a shift, even the temperature in the fatory, anything that might be relevant to problem diagnosis.

Whereas batch tags label whole batches and let you collect groups of batches together, data tags label the individual data, letting you look at subdivisions within a batch.

Having decided how you want to tag your data, enable QS-Pro's data tagging (in Tools - Options - Data Entry) and check the Prompt On Batch Open box.  Next choose Tools - Configure Data Tags and create appropriate tag types, eg. reel, operator, machine etc, then create tag values - one for each operator (eg, Tom, Dick & Harry), for each reel, for each machine etc.  When you next open a batch QS-Pro will prompt you to select a tag value for each tag type: a reel, an operator etc, and will then apply those tags to all the data that you enter.  You can change the tags at any time but QS-Pro will contnue applying the same tags until you do.  Collecting traceability data can be totally transparent and need not take up any more time than simply entering the data.

When you work with tagged data QS-Pro can show you charts or statistics for data from one particular tag value or a combination of values, a particular reel or machine perhaps.  You can then compare the quality of different reels, or perhaps of reels from different suppliers.  You vendor rating procedures, for example, could include hard evidence in the form of a capability study of parts produced from a batch of raw material from one supplier compared with material from another.