Designing an economic rectifying sampling plan in the presence of two markets

In this paper, an optimization model is developed for the economic design of a rectifying inspection sampling plan in the presence of two markets. A product with a normally distributed quality characteristic with unknown mean and variance is produced in the process. The quality characteristic has a lower specification limit. The aim of this paper is to maximize the profit, which consists the Taguchi loss function, under the constraints of satisfying the producer's and consumer's risk in two different markets simultaneously. Giveaway cost per unit of sold excess material is considered in the proposed model. A case study is presented to illustrate the application of proposed methodology. In addition, sensitivity analysis is performed to study the effect of model parameters on the expected profit and optimal solution. Optimal process adjustment problem and acceptance sampling plan is combined in the economical optimization model. Also, process mean and standard deviation are assumed to be unknown value, and their impact is analyzed. Finally, inspection error is considered, and its impact is investigated and analyzed.     

Developing of a new system of skip-lot reinspection schemes

The skip-lot sampling plans are widely used in industries for quality inspection of products in order to reduce the sampling costs and inspection efforts when products have good quality history. Also, the skip-lot sampling plan concept is sound and useful and it is economically advantageous to use the skip-lot approach in the design of sampling plans. Thus, the skip-lot sampling plans are useful to minimize the cost of the inspection particularly in costly and destructive testing. Hence, a new system of skip-lot sampling plans designated as SkSP-2-R plan is developed in this article by incorporating the idea of resampling procedure in the skip-lot sampling plans of type SkSP-2. A Markov chain formulation and derivation of performance measures for this new plan are presented. The properties and advantages of the SkSP-2-R plan are studied with single sampling plan as the reference plan. The response-to-change characteristics of the SkSP-2-R plan are also investigated, based on the average run length.     

Minimum Size Double Sampling Plans for Large Isolated Lots

A common approach to the design of an acceptance sampling plan is to require that the operating characteristic (OC) curve should pass through two designated points that would fix the curve in accordance with a desired degree of discrimination. This paper presents a search procedure for the selection of double sampling inspection plans of type DSP - (0, 1) for specified two points on the OC curve, namely acceptance quality limit, producer's risk, limiting quality and consumer's risk. Selection of the plans is discussed for both the cases of fraction non-conforming and the number of non-conformities per unit.     

Bayesian acceptance sampling plans following economic criteria: An application to paper pulp manufacturing

The main purposes of this paper are to derive Bayesian acceptance sampling plans regarding the number of defects per unit of product, and to illustrate how to apply the methodology to the paper pulp industry. The sampling plans are obtained following an economic criterion: minimize the expected total cost of quality. It has been assumed that the number of defects per unit of product follows a Poisson distribution with process average 5 , whose prior information is described either for a gamma or for a non- informative distribution. The expected total cost of quality is composed of three independent components: inspection, acceptance and rejection. Both quadratic and step-loss functions have been used to quantify the cost incurred for the acceptance of a lot containing units with defects. Combining the prior information on 5 with the loss functions, four different sampling plans are obtained. When the quadratic-loss function is used, an analytical relation between the optimum settings of the sample size and the acceptance number is derived. The robustness analysis indicates that the sampling plans obtained are robust with respect to the prior distribution of the process average as well as to the misspecification of its mean and variance.     

Optimal designing of two-level skip-lot sampling reinspection plan

Skip-lot sampling plan is often applied in industries for reducing the cost and effort of the inspection of the product having excellent quality history. Consequence of skip-lot sampling plans is to reduce the cost of inspection so which are more attractive in economical aspect. In this paper, we develop a sampling plan by incorporating the idea of resampling in two-level skip lot sampling plan and the new plan is designated as SkSP-2L.1-R. This paper presents the Markov chain formulation of the proposed plan along with the derivation of performance measures of the plan. We also provide the designing methodology to determine the optimal parameters of the SkSP-2L.1-R plan so as to minimize the average sample number by using two points on the operating characteristic curve approach. By contemplating various combinations of producer and consumer quality levels along with respective risks, a table is constructed to determine the optimal parameters. An industrial application of the proposed SkSP-2L.1-R plan is discussed. The SkSP-2L.1-R with single sampling plan as a reference plan is compared with the conventional single sampling plan, SkSP-2 plan and SkSP-2-R plan and proved that the proposed SkSP-2L.1-R plan outperforms these plans.KEYWORDS: Consumer quality level, average sample number, producer quality level, resampling scheme, skip-lot sampling     

Economic design of quick switching sampling system for resubmitted lots

This paper proposes a quick switching sampling system for the inspection of attributes quality characteristics for resubmitted lots. The optimal parameters for both fraction non conforming items and fraction non conformities of the proposed sampling system are determined using an optimization procedure so that producer’s risk and consumer’s risk are simultaneously satisfied. Tables are also constructed for the selection of parameters for specified AQL and LQL. The advantage of the proposed plan over the existing plan is discussed and illustrate. An economic design of the proposed sampling system is also discussed and shown that the proposed sampling system has minimum total cost and average total inspection compared to other existing sampling plans.     

Optimal Designing of Variables Sampling Plan for Resubmitted Lots

This article proposes a variables sampling plan that can be applied for sampling inspection of resubmitted lots when the quality characteristic of interest follows the normal distribution. Resubmission of lots for inspection is allowed in some situations where the original inspection results are suspected or when the supplier or producer is allowed to opt for resampling as per the provisions of the contract, etc. The advantages of this proposed variables sampling plan over the existing single sampling variables plan are discussed. Tables are also constructed for the selection of optimal parameters of known and unknown standard deviation variables resampling scheme for specified two points on the operating characteristic curve, namely, the acceptable quality level and the limiting quality level along with the producer and consumer's risks. The optimization problem is formulated as a nonlinear programming where the objective function to be minimized is the average sample number and the constraints are related to lot acceptance probabilities at acceptable quality level and limiting quality level under the operating characteristic curve.     

Sampling inspection for resubmitted lots

Lot resubmissions are allowed in situations where the original inspection results are suspected or when the supplier is allowed to opt for resampling as per the provisions of the contract etc. This paper examines the situation of resampling of lots and derives the performance measures of a resampling scheme having a single sampling plan for inspection. The usefulness and limitations of resampling of resubmitted lots are also discussed     

Design and Construction of a Variables Repetitive Group Sampling Plan for Unilateral Specification Limit

This paper attempts to develop a repetitive group sampling (RGS) plan by variables inspection for controlling the process fraction defective or the number of nonconformities when the quality characteristic follows a normal distribution and has only the lower or upper specification limit. The proposed sampling plan is derived by the exact sampling distribution rather than the approximation approach. The plan parameters are solved by a nonlinear optimization model which minimizes the average sample number required for inspection and fulfills the classical two-point conditions on the operating characteristic (OC) curve. The efficiency of the proposed variables RGS is examined and also compared with the existing variables single sampling plan in terms of the sample size required for inspection. The results indicate that the proposed variables RGS plan could significantly reduce samples required for inspection compared to the traditional variables single sampling plan.     

Optimal sampling op hierarchical screening with inspection errors

For the multi-stage hierarchical Dorfman group testing problem, where inspection errors exist, we provide a simple procedure to determine the number to stages, the number of subgroups of each stage and sample size of each subgroup simultaneously. The optimal group testing plan established by this procedure minimizes the expected number of tests per item. This result can be easily extended to more general applications.     

An integrated model based on statistical process control and maintenance for two-stage dependent processes

The close relationship between quality and maintenance of manufacturing systems has contributed to the development of integrated models which use the concept of statistical process control (SPC) and maintenance. This article demonstrates the integration of the Shewhart individual-residual (Z_X ? Z_e) joint control chart and maintenance for two-stage dependent processes by jointly optimizing their policies to minimize the expected total costs associated with quality, maintenance and inspection. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed model, two stand-alone models—a maintenance model and an SPC model—are proposed. Then a numerical example is given to illustrate the application of the proposed integrated model. The results show that the integrated model outperforms the two stand-alone models with regard to the expected cost per unit time. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to develop insights into time parameters and cost parameters that influence the integration efforts.     

Repetitive group sampling procedure for variables inspection

This paper introduces the concept of repetitive group sampling (RGS) for variables inspection. The repetitive group sampling plan for variables inspection will be useful when testing is costly and destructive. The advantages of the variables RGS plan over variables single sampling plan, variables double sampling plan and attributes RGS plan are discussed. Tables are also constructed for the selection of parameters of known and unknown standard deviation variables repetitive group sampling plan indexed by acceptable quality level and limiting quality level.     

Planning Life Tests Based on Progressively Type-I Grouped Censored Data from the Weibull Distribution

In this article, we apply the simulated annealing algorithm to determine optimally spaced inspection times for the two-parameter Weibull distribution for any given progressive Type-I grouped censoring plan. We examine how the asymptotic relative efficiencies of the estimates are affected by the position of the monitoring points and the number of monitoring points used. A comparison of different inspection plans is made that will enable the user to select a plan for a specified quality goal. Using the same algorithm, we can also determine an optimal progressive Type-I grouped censoring plan when the inspection times and the expected proportions of total failures in the experiment are pre-fixed. Finally, we discuss the sample size and the acceptance constant of the progressively Type-I grouped censored reliability sampling plan when the optimal inspection times are used.     

Selection of csp-t plans

Various continuous sampling plans have been proposed for monitoring the quality of continuous production processes. The multi-level continuous sampling plan of MIL-STD-1235C (1988) is designated as CSP-T Plan. CSP-T plan is a three-level tightened continuous sampling plan. It requires a switch to 100% inspection, at any level, whenever a nonconforming unit is found. This provides quick rectification in the event of a shift in quality. In this paper certain performance characteristics of CSP-T plan are derived using the approach of Stephens (1979) under the assumption that the production process is in statistical control. For the selection of CSP-T plans, two tables are given. These tables can be used to obtain parameters i (clearance interval) and f (sampling fraction) of the CSP-T plan for given acceptable quality level (AQL) with producer’ risk α=0.05 or the limiting quality level(LQL) with consumer’ risk β=0.10 and the outgoing quality limit(AOQL). Two examples are also given to illustrate the selection of plans from these tables     

Double and group acceptance sampling plan for truncated life test based on inverse log-logistic distribution

This paper introduces a double and group acceptance sampling plans based on time truncated lifetimes when the lifetime of an item follows the inverse log-logistic (ILL) distribution with known shape parameter. The operating characteristic function and average sample number (ASN) values of the double acceptance sampling inspection plan are provided. The values of the minimum number of groups and operating characteristic function for various quality levels are obtained for a group acceptance sampling inspection plan. A comparative study between single acceptance sampling inspection plan and double acceptance sampling inspection plan is carried out in terms of sample size. One simulated example and four real-life examples are discussed to show the applicability of the proposed double and group acceptance sampling inspection plans for ILL distributed quality parameters.     

A New Acceptance Sampling Policy Based on Number of Successive Conforming Items

In an acceptance-sampling plan, where items of an incoming batch of products are inspected one by one, if the number of conforming items between successive non conforming items falls below a lower control threshold, the batch is rejected. If it falls above an upper control threshold, the batch is accepted, and if it lies within the thresholds then the process of inspecting the items continues. The purpose of this article is to develop an optimization model to determine the optimum values of the thresholds such that constraints on the probability of Type I and Type II errors are satisfied. This article starts by developing a Markovian model to derive the expected total cost of the inspection problem containing the costs of acceptance, rejection, and inspection. Then, the optimum values of the thresholds are selected in order to minimize the expected cost. To demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology, perform sensitivity analysis, and compare the performance of the proposed procedure to the one of another method, a numerical example is given at the end and the results are reported.     

Economically optimal inspection policy with geometric adaptation

A process is considered whose quality deteriorates according to a constant failure intensity 5 . As, in practice, it can be difficult to estimate the true value of 5 , the purpose of this paper is to present a strategy that can be applied without knowing 5 . In order to maximize profit per item, perfect inspections and renewals are performed. The length of the inspection interval is described by a geometric sequence and changes in time, depending on perceived assignable causes. Optimal adaptive control plans provide nearly the same profit per item as in the case when 5 is known.     

Dodge-Romig AOQL single sampling plans for inspection by variables

Acceptance sampling plans for inspection by variables, which minimize the mean inspection cost per lot of process average quality (assuming that the remainder of rejected lots is inspected), are derived under the condition that the maximum value of the mean fraction defective after sampling inspection, replacing all defective items found by good ones, shall be equal top _L . These plans are tabulated for chosen values of the given parameters, and compared with the Dodge-Romig AOQL attribute sampling plans. From the comparison it follows that under the same protection of consumer the AOQL plans for inspection by variables are in some situations more economical than the corresponding Dodge-Romig plans.     

Acceptance sampling by variables when the remainder of rejected lots is inspected

Acceptance sampling plans for inspection by variables, which minimize the mean inspection cost per lot of process average quality (assuming that the remainder of rejected lots is, inspected), were derived under the condition that the probability of accepting a submitted lot of tolerance quality, shall be 0.1. These plans were tabulated for chosen values of the given parameters, and compared with the Dodge-Romig LTPD attribute sampling plans. From the comparison it follows that under the same protection of consumer the LTPD plans for inspection by variables are in many situations more economical than the corresponding Dodge-Romig plans. This result is valid especially for the large lots and for the small values of the tolerance fraction defective.     

Planning life tests with progressively Type-I interval censored data from the lognormal distribution

In this paper, we determine optimally spaced inspection times for the two-parameter lognormal distribution for any given progressive interval censoring plan. We investigate the effect of the number of inspections and the choice of those optimally spaced inspection times based on the asymptotic relative efficiencies of the maximum likelihood estimates of the parameters. We also discuss the optimal progressive Type-I interval censoring plan when the inspection times and the expected proportions of total failures in the experiment are pre-fixed.