Chapter - 4

Acceptance Sampling
• Acceptance sampling is concerned with inspection and decision making regarding
products, one of the oldest aspects of quality assurance.

• In the 1930s and 1940s, acceptance sampling was one of the major components of the
field of statistical quality control, and was used primarily for incoming or receiving
inspection.

• In more recent years, it has become typical to work with suppliers to improve their
process performance through the use of SPC and designed experiments, and not to rely
as much on acceptance sampling as a primary quality assurance tool.
A typical application of acceptance sampling is as follows:

• A company receives a shipment of product from a supplier. This product is often a

component or raw material used in the company’s manufacturing process.

• A sample is taken from the lot, and some quality characteristic of the units in the
sample is inspected.

• On the basis of the information in this sample, a decision is made regarding lot
disposition. Usually, this decision is either to accept or to reject the lot. Sometimes we
refer to this decision as lot sentencing.

• Accepted lots are put into production; where as rejected lots may be returned to the
supplier or may be subjected to some other lot disposition action.
 Three aspects of sampling are important:

1. It is the purpose of acceptance sampling to sentence lots, not to estimate the lot
quality.

2. Acceptance-sampling plans do not provide any direct form of quality control.

Acceptance sampling simply accepts and rejects lots.

3. The most effective use of acceptance sampling is not to “inspect quality into the
product,” but rather as an audit tool to ensure that the output of a process
conforms to requirements.
Generally, there are three approaches to lot sentencing:

1. Accept with no inspection;

2. 100% inspection

3. Acceptance sampling.

1. The no-inspection alternative is useful in situations where either the supplier’s

process is so good that defective units are almost never encountered or where there is
no economic justification to look for defective units.

2. 100% inspection -that is, inspect every item in the lot, removing all defective units
found (defectives may be returned to the supplier, reworked, replaced with known good
items, or discarded).
3. Acceptance sampling is most likely to be useful in the following situations:

1. When testing is destructive

2. When the cost of 100% inspection is extremely high

3. When 100% inspection is not technologically feasible or would require so much calendar

4. When there are many items to be inspected and the inspection error rate is sufficiently high that 100%
inspection might cause a higher percentage of defective units to be passed than would occur with the
use of a sampling plan

5. When the supplier has an excellent quality history, and some reduction in inspection from 100% is
desired, but the supplier’s process capability is sufficiently low as to make no inspection an
unsatisfactory alternative

6. When there are potentially serious product liability risks, and although the supplier’s process is
satisfactory, a program for continuously monitoring the product is necessary
 Types of Sampling Plans

• There are a number of different ways to classify acceptance-sampling plans.

One major classification is by variables and attributes

 A single-sampling plan

 Double-sampling plans

 A multiple-sampling plan

 sequential sampling
 Lot Formation
• How the lot is formed can influence the effectiveness of the acceptance-sampling plan.

• There are a number of important considerations in forming lots for inspection. Some
of these are as follows:

1. Lots should be homogeneous.

2. Larger lots are preferred over smaller ones.

3. Lots should be conformable to the materials-handling systems used in both the

supplier and consumer facilities.
 Random Sampling

• The units selected for inspection from the lot should be chosen at random, and
they should be representative of all the items in the lot.

• The random-sampling concept is extremely important in acceptance sampling.

Unless random samples are used, bias will be introduced.
 Single-Sampling Plans

• Suppose that a lot of size N has been submitted for inspection.

• A single-sampling plan is defined by the sample size n and the acceptance number c.

• Thus, if the lot size is N = 10,000, then the sampling plan n=89, c = 2 means that from
a lot of size 10,000 a random sample of n = 89 units is inspected and the number of
nonconforming or defective items d observed.

• If the number of observed defectives d is less than or equal to c = 2, the lot will be
accepted.

• If the number of observed defectives d is greater than c = 2, the lot will be rejected.
 The OC Curve
• An important measure of the performance of an acceptance-sampling plan is the
operating characteristic (OC) curve.

• This curve plots the probability of accepting the lot versus the lot fraction
defective.

• Thus, the OC curve displays the discriminatory power of the sampling plan.

• That is, it shows the probability that a lot submitted with a certain fraction
defective will be either accepted or rejected.
• The OC curve of the sampling plan n = 89, c = 2 is shown in figure blow
• It is easy to demonstrate how the points on this curve are obtained. Suppose that the
lot size N is large (theoretically infinite).

• Under this condition, the distribution of the number of defectives d in a random

sample of n items is binomial with parameters n and p, where p is the fraction of
defective items in the lot.

• An equivalent way to conceptualize this is to draw lots of N items at random from a

theoretically infinite process, and then to draw random samples of n from these lots.

• Sampling from the lot in this manner is the equivalent of sampling directly from the
process.
• The OC curve is developed by evaluating equation (15.2) for various
values of p. Table 15.2 displays the calculated value of several points
on the curve.
• A consumer often establishes a sampling plan for a continuing supply of components or raw
material with reference to an acceptable quality level (AQL).

• The AQL represents the poorest level of quality for the supplier’s process that the consumer
would consider to be acceptable as a process average.

• The consumer will also be interested in the other end of the OC curve—that is, in the
protection that is obtained for individual lots of poor quality.

• In such a situation, the consumer may establish a lot tolerance percent defective (LTPD).

• The LTPD is the poorest level of quality that the consumer is willing to accept in an
individual lot.

• Alternate names for the LTPD are the reject able quality level (RQL) and the limiting
quality level (LQL).
 Type-A and Type-B OC Curves

• Type-A curves are based on finite lot sizes and use the hyper-geometric distribution,
representing the acceptance probability of a specific lot.

• Type-B curves, on the other hand, assume an infinite lot size and use the binomial
distribution, representing the acceptance probability of a continuous process.

• Type A curve is always lower than the Type B curve.

• Type A curve always has less probability of acceptance than Type B curve.

• As the lot size increases, type A curve approaches Type B curve.

 Type-A and Type-B OC Curves
 Rectifying Inspection

• Acceptance-sampling programs usually require corrective action when lots are rejected.

• This generally takes the form of 100% inspection or screening of rejected lots, with all
discovered defective items either removed for subsequent rework or return to the
supplier, or replaced from a stock of known good items.

• Such sampling programs are called rectifying inspection programs, because the
inspection activity affects the final quality of the outgoing product.

• A rectifying inspection program serves to “correct” lot quality.

• Rectifying inspection programs are used in situations where the manufacturer wishes
to know the average level of quality that is likely to result at a given stage of the
manufacturing operations.
• Suppose that incoming lots to the inspection activity have fraction defective 𝒑𝟎 .
Some of these lots will be accepted, and others will be rejected.

• The rejected lots will be screened, and their final fraction defective will be zero.
However, accepted lots have fraction defective 𝒑𝟎 .

• Consequently, the outgoing lots from the inspection activity are a mixture of lots
with fraction defective 𝒑𝟎 and fraction defective zero, so the average fraction
defective in the stream of outgoing lots is 𝒑𝟏 , which is less than 𝒑𝟎
 Average outgoing quality(AOQ)
• Average outgoing quality is widely used for the evaluation of a rectifying
sampling plan.

• The AOQ is the quality in the lot that results from the application of rectifying
inspection.

• It is the average value of lot quality that would be obtained over a long sequence of
lots from a process with fraction defective p.
• It is simple to develop a formula for average outgoing quality (AOQ). Assume that
the lot size is N and that all discovered defectives are replaced with good units.
Then in lots of size N, we have

1. n items in the sample that, after inspection, contain no defectives, because all
discovered defectives are replaced

2. N − n items that, if the lot is rejected, also contain no defectives

3. N − n items that, if the lot is accepted, contain p(N − n) defectives

• That is, the average outgoing quality is 0.93% defective.

• Note that as the lot size N becomes large relative to the sample size n, we may write
equation (15.4) as

AOQ = Pa p

• Average outgoing quality will vary as the fraction defective of the incoming lots varies.

• The curve that plots average outgoing quality against incoming lot quality is called an
AOQ curve.
• The maximum ordinate on the AOQ curve represents the worst possible average quality
that would result from the rectifying inspection program, and this point is called the
average outgoing quality limit (AOQL).
• From examining Fig. 15.11, the AOQL is seen to be approximately 0.0155.
 Double-Sampling Plans
• A double-sampling plan is a procedure in which, under certain circumstances, a second
sample is required before the lot can be sentenced.

• A double-sampling plan is defined by four parameters:

 n1 = sample size on the first sample
 c1 = acceptance number of the first sample
 n2 = sample size on the second sample
 c2 = acceptance number for both samples

• As an example, suppose n1 = 50, c1 = 1, n2 = 100, and c2 = 3.

• Thus, a random sample of n1 = 50 items is selected from the lot, and the number of
defectives in the sample, d1, is observed.
• If d1 ≤ c1 = 1, the lot is accepted on the first sample. If d1 > c2 = 3, the lot is rejected
on the first sample.

• If c1 < d1 ≤ c2, a second random sample of size n2 = 100 is drawn from the lot, and
the number of defectives in this second sample, d2, is observed.

• Now the combined number of observed defectives from both the first and second
sample, d1 + d2, is used to determine the lot sentence.

• If d1 + d2 ≤ c2 = 3, the lot is accepted. However, if d1 + d2 > c2 = 3, the lot is

rejected.

• The operation of this double-sampling plan is illustrated graphically in Fig. 15.13.

 Multiple-Sampling Plans
• A multiple-sampling plan is an extension of double-sampling in that more than two
samples can be required to sentence a lot.

• This plan will operate as follows: If, at the completion of any stage of sampling, the
number of defective items is less than or equal to the acceptance number, the lot is
accepted.

• If, during any stage, the number of defective items equals or exceeds the rejection
number, the lot is rejected; otherwise the next sample is taken.

• The principal advantage of multiple-sampling plans is that the samples required at

each stage are usually smaller than those in single- or-double-sampling.

• However, multiple-sampling is much more complex to administer.

 Sequential-Sampling Plans
• Sequential-sampling is an extension of the double-sampling and multiple-sampling
concept.

• In sequential-sampling, we take a sequence of samples from the lot and allow the
number of samples to be determined entirely by the results of the sampling process.

• In practice, sequential-sampling can theoretically continue indefinitely, until the lot

is inspected 100%.
• If the sample size selected at each stage is greater than one, the process is
usually called group sequential-sampling.

• If the sample size inspected at each stage is one, the procedure is usually
called item-by-item sequential-sampling.

• Item-by-item sequential-sampling is based on the sequential probability ratio

test (SPRT), developed by Wald (1947).