UNIT IX

ACCEPTANCE SAMPLING In the preceding material we have looked

at various techniques and their application for controlling the quality of the
product as it is being produced. Our primary concern was to us e the information to
help make decis ions as to what action s hould be taken in continuing or correcting
the proces s as it was running. We s hall now look at the problem of making decis ions
about material s ubmitted for our acceptance. This may be material from an outs ide
s upplier or from a preceding fabrication or proces s ing department for which
certified control charts relating to the proces s are not available. TECHNIQUES
USED FOR ACCEPTING MATERIAL There are s everal methods which have been us ed at
various times , and for various reas ons , for the acceptance of material. Among thos e
which we s hall dis cus s are: 1. No tes ting or ins pection at all 2. 100%
s orting (detailing) 3. Spot-checking 4. Cons tant percentage s ampling 5.
Scientific s ampling As you would expect, the mos t practical in the long run
involves the us e of s cientific s tatis tical s ampling plans . Occas ionally materials
will be received and s ent directly to s torage, proces s ing or as s embly without being
checked. Very little or nothing is known about the quality of s uch material until
it is needed for us e. This is not a very oppertune time to dis cover nonconforming
material. At the other end of the s pectrum is the other extreme involving 100%
ins pection. This is s ometimes needed for critical parts where cons iderable ris k is
involved. On the other hand, if the ris k is not great, 100% ins pection can be quite
cos tly. Further, 100% ins pection does not as s ure that all product conforms .
Experience s hows that 100% ins pection is only about 85 to 90% efficient due to
fatigue and human error inherent in s uch repetitive activities . To demons trate
the above fact let's do a little experiment. Read the following paragraph ONLY ONCE
and circle each "F" that you s ee. Count the circles without rereading the
paragraph. The people that live in the United States enjoy the privilege of
having a plentiful s upply of food. Many of us eat s o much food that we gain weight
exces s ively. It is folly for us to eat s o much that we get fat while people in
other countries are s tarving. Perhaps our abundance of food is due to well planned
s oil cons ervation. Regardles s of how we obtain our s upply of food, the average
American hus band likes a wife who is able to maintain a flattering figure for
hers elf. If you found all of the F's the firs t time, this is the equivalent to
100% ins pection. If it was neces s ary to read the paragraph the s econd time, this is
equivalent to 200% ins pection. There are nineteen F's in the paragraph and if you
have to read it again to find them all that means that you have performed 300%
ins pection. Who's going to pay for all that ins pecting?? In an attempt to
arrive at a compromis e between no checking and 100% checking, s ome people have
res orted to s pot-checking random s hipments . This will s top s ome defective material
but it is only partially effective s ince many lots will be accepted without a
check. Pos s ibly the mos t frequently us ed acceptance technique has been the
ins pection of an arbitrary cons tant-percentage s ample from each s ubmitted lot of
material. The mos t notorious s uch plan has been the 10% s ample. Regardles s of the
s ize of the lot, a s ample of 10% is tes ted and the res ults of that tes t is us ed to
determine the quality of the entire lot. This technique is s omewhat better than the
preceding plans , but it s till has certain weaknes s es . For s ome material, 10% is
too s mall a s ample, while for others it may be to large. Such plans place a burden
of over ins pecting on large lot s izes . As we s hall s ee later, a 10% s ample from
1000 pieces is far more s tringent than is a 10% s ample of 50 pieces . In any
s ampling technique, certain ris ks of making a wrong decis ion is inherent in the
s ys tem. Defective material may be accepted, or acceptable material may be rejected.
All too often thos e us ing arbitrary percentage s ampling plans as s ign a rejection
number of one nonconformity with little or no idea of the ris ks inherent in the
plan. Scientific s ampling plans pos s es s many of the s ame characteris tics as the
arbitrary plans in providing a compromis e between no ins pection and 100%
ins pection. They have the advantage of providing known ris ks of erronious decis ions
and they do not dis criminate agains t large lot s izes . PRELIMINARY
CONSIDERATIONS Let's go back to our paragraph with the F's for a minute. If we
were to cons ider this to be a lot of a certain product with the F's repres enting
nonconforming material we find that there are 19 nonconforming items among the 383
items in the lot. This means that the lot is nearly 5% (4.96) nonconforming. From
tables of s ampling plans , which we will explain later, we find that if we could
tolerate product which contained no more than 1% nonconforming parts , we s hould
take a s ample of 50 items and accept if we find no more than one nonconforming part
in the s ample. If we count the firs t 50 letters in our product lot we find that
there are no F's s o we accept the entire lot. But we know that it is nearly 5%
nonconforming. This brings up another element which is extremely important in
s ampling. The s ample mus t be repres entative of the total lot, therefore, we mus t
take an unbias ed random s ample. This means that any item in the lot mus t have an
equal opportunity of being s elected in the s ample. If we thoroughly mix the
letters and then draw 50 from the mixture we might obtain a s ample s imilar to the
one s hown below. The s ample contains 4 nonconformities s o we would reject the lot
at the 1% level. However, the plan for a 6% lot calls for a s ample of 50 and
permits us to accept if we find 6 or les s nonconformities in our s ample. As can be
s een we could accept the lot if we feel that we can work with material that is no
wors e than 6% nonconforming. G TOTU IONFE SABED AWLAP
FHSAK OG ATH IFALP YWEPA YTMLF OTITA It s hould be obvious
that before any s ampling plan can be us ed the characteris tics to be checked mus t be
clearly identified and adequate ins truments provided to check thos e
characteris tics . Care mus t be taken to provide an unbias ed random s ample of the
s ubmitted material. Unles s the data is accurate, hones t and random, the res ults
will have no merit or advantage over the decis ion to take no s amples . A s tatis tical
s ampling plan will not enhance s loppy or erroneous data. THE OPERATING
CHARACTERISTIC CURVE One of the mos t valuable aids in s electing a s ampling plan
is the OPERATING CHARACTERISTIC CURVE, commonly referred to as the O. C. Curve.
This is a plotted curve which s hows the probability (ris k) of accepting product at
varying quality levels under a given plan. Each plan has its own O. C. Curve. Shown
below is an O. C. Curve for a s ample of 10 items taken from a lot of 100 items . If
the s ample contains 0 or 1 nonconformities , the lot is accepted, if it has two or
more the lot is rejected. The s ymbolic form in which this plan is written is as
follows : N = 100 n = 10
c = 1 where is the lot s ize, n is the s ample s ize and c is the acceptance number.
(INSERT O.C.CURVE FOR THIS PLAN) Since the O. C. Curve s hows the probability of
accepting a lot at a given percent nonconforming, we can s ee that if the lot is
perfect, we s hould expect all lots to be accepted. However if the lots contain 10%
nonconforming product we would expect to accept only about 74% of the s ubmitted
lots . This means that we reject about one fourth of the lots on ins pection. It can
be s een that this threat of rejection of poor quality product can have a powerful
influence on the s upplier. ACCEPTABLE QUALITY LEVEL -- AQL Anytime the
decis ion is made to us e an acceptance procedure it becomes neces s ary to es tablis h
jus t what quality level is cons idered to be acceptable. It mus t be realized that it
is inevitable that there is a degree of variability in any proces s and that s hort
of extremely redundant ins pection we will have s ome percentage of nonconforming
product in the lots . Although we would prefer 100% perfect product we might not be
able to pay for it when we get it. There is no s imple rule for es tablis hing an
AQL. One aid is to examine material accepted and us ed in the pas t and adjus t this
to a value which can be lived with. Once we have es tablis hed this value we have a
meas ure of what cons titutes "good quality." If our s ampling plan operates
s atis factorily, we want to accept nearly all of the lots which are as good or
better than our AQL and reject nearly all of thos e which are wors e than our
acceptable level. Notice that we want to accept NEARLY all of the good lots .
This is in recognition of the ris ks involved in s ampling. Even though we s hould
des ire all lots this good to be accepted, we know that s ampling fluctuations will
occas ionally caus e us to make an erroneous decis ion. To be more s pecific, let's s ay
that we want our s ampling plan to accept at leas t 95% of the lots which are as good
as , or better than, the AQL. We have thus acknowledged a ris k of 5% of making an
erroneous decis ion at a particular incoming quality level and have s pecified one
point on our O. C. Curve. Since the ris k we have s pecified is the ris k of rejecting
material which we have clas s ified as acceptable, we call this the "PRODUCER'S
RISK ". The diagram on the next page is prepared for an AQL of 3% and a Producer's
ris k of 5%.
We refer to this as the producers ris k becaus e the producer is the one who is hurt
if the lot is in fact as good as or better than the AQL and is rejected.
(INSERT G RAPH OF O. C. CURVE SHOWING 5% PRODUCER'S RISK AT AQL =3%)
REJECTABLE QUALITY LEVEL -- RQL By s electing the AQL, we have s pecified a
meas ure of acceptable quality. n a s imilar manner, we mus t determine what quality
is s o bad that if we were to receive it we might expect to encounter great
difficulty in us ing it. This is a meas ure of unacceptable quality and is commonly
referred to as the Rejectable Quality Level, or RQL. Sometimes this is referred to
as the Lot Tolerance Percent Defective. LTPD Again we mus t recognize the ris ks
inherent in s ampling plans . We know that s ampling fluctuations will frequently
caus e us to accept material which we don't want, but we can limit this ris k to s ome
s pecified amount. Let's s uppos e that we wouldn't want to accept more than 10% of
the lots pres ented if they were as bad as , or wors e than, the . Since we are
concerned with the ris k of accepting material which is unacceptable, we call this
ris k the Cons umer's Ris k. By s pecifying the RQL and Cons umer's Ris k, we have
located another point on the O. C. Curve. The following diagram has been prepared
for an RQL of 8% and a Cons umer's Ris k of 10%. (INSERT O.C.G RAPH SHOWING 10%
CONSUMER'S RISK )

It s hould be noted that it is common to s et the Producer's ris k

at 5% and the Cons umer's ris k at 10% and then to adjus t the AQL and RQL to obtain
the protection we des ire. A s ampling plan which would meet the criteria we've
placed upon it by our s election of an AQL and RQL would require a s ingle s ampling
plan with a s ample s ize in exces s of 200. One plan which would s atis fy our
requirements would be a s ample s ize of 225 and an acceptance number of 11. This
means that we would have to examine 225 pieces and would then accept the lot if the
s ample contained 11 or les s nonconforming pieces and reject it if it contained 12
or more. This plan is illus trated by the following O. C. Curve. (INSERT 0. C.
CURVE FOR N=225 AND C=11) THE FALLACY OF A CONSTANT PERCENTAG E SAMPLE There
is an error made by thos e who believe that a cons tant percentage s ample s ubjects
material to a fair tes t regardles s of the s ize of the lot. A cons tant percentage
s ample inflicts a greater penalty on large lots than it does on s mall lots . This
fact is demons trated in the diagram on the following page. The fact is that a
cons tant s ample s ize will provide a more cons is tent degree of protection than will
the cons tant percentage s ample.