Acceptance Sampling

Prepared by
Anthony Lizza
Penn State University

What will be covered?

What is acceptance sampling?
How/When would you use it in
your organization?
Acceptance sampling explained.
How acceptance sampling
works.
An exercise.
Summary

What is acceptance
sampling?
Acceptance Sampling

Statistical quality control

technique, where a random sample
is taken from a lot, and upon the
results of the sample taken the lot
will either be rejected or accepted.

What is acceptance
sampling?

Accept Lot

Ready for customers

Not suitable for customers

Sample and determine if in

acceptable limits

Reject Lot

Statistical Process
Control(SPC)

What is acceptance
sampling?
Purposes

Determine the quality level of an

incoming shipment or, at the end
production
Ensure that the quality level is
within the level that has been
predetermined

What is acceptance
sampling?
Can be either 100% inspection,
or a few items of a lot.
Complete inspection

Inspecting each item produced to

see if each item meets the level
desired
Used when defective items would
be very detrimental in some way

Acceptance Sampling
method
A C C E P T A N C E S A M P L IN G
TAK E SA M PLE
IN S P E C T S A M P L E
T y p e t it le h e re
D E C IS IO N
ACCEPT LOT

R E JE C T LO T

S A M P L E A G A IN

D E C IS IO N
R E T U R N L O T T O S U P P L IE R

1 0 0 % IN S P E C T IO N

What is acceptance
sampling?
Problems with 100% inspection

Very expensive
When product must be destroyed to
test
Inspection must be very tedious so
defective items do not slip through
inspection

How/When would you

use it?
Acceptance sampling
advantages

Less handling damages

Fewer inspectors to put on payroll
100% inspection costs are to high
100% testing would take to long

How/When would you

use it?
Acceptance sampling
disadvantages

Risk included in chance of bad lot

acceptance and good lot
rejection
Sample taken provides less
information than 100% inspection

How/When would you

use it?
Between your organization and
outside world
Samples taken run through
filter, either passing or
rejecting it
Also filter from suppliers to you

How/When you would

use it?
When products in use could be
damaged easily
When using new suppliers
When new products produced
When current supplier in
question
Testing whole lot could be
harmful

How/When you would

use it?
Determine how many units, n, to
sample from an lot
Determine maximum number of
defective items, c, that can be
found before the lot is rejected

Acceptance sampling
explained
Acceptable Quality levels(AQL)

Number of defect percentage

allowed in a lot which can still be
considered accepted(Type I error)

Lot Tolerance Percent

Defective(LTPD)

Amount of defects that will come

with a lot of goods(Type II error)

Acceptance sampling
explained
Sampling Plan

Forms after n and c values have

been found

Producers risk

Risk associated with a lot of

acceptable quality rejected

Acceptance sampling
explained
Consumers risk

Receive shipment, assume good

quality, actually bad quality

Alpha

Type I error(producers risk)

Beta

Type II error(consumers risk)

Acceptance sampling
explained
N

Sample size taken for your

sampling plan

Where rejections would occur

when defects exceeded this
percent

Acceptance sampling
explained
Operating characteristics
curve(OC)

A graph, displaying standards at

which shipments would be
accepted

First

Determine AQL, a, LTPD, b,

Take LTPD/AQL, this gives you the
n(AQL)

Acceptance sampling
explained
Reference n(AQL) in the table

C will be given as well when referencing

the table

Next

N(AQL/AQL)=n-sample size
C= reject if more percent defects more

The equations can be tricky but the

exercise later will help

How acceptance
sampling works
Two classifications of
acceptance plans
Attributes(go no-go)
Variables

How acceptance
sampling works
Attributes(go no-go)

Defectives-product acceptability
across range
Defects-number of defects per unit

Variable(continuous)

Usually measured by mean and

standard deviation

How acceptance
sampling works
Remember

You are not measuring the quality

of the lot, but, you are to sentence
the lot to either reject or accept it

An Exercise
Determine the

AQL, a, LTPD, B?
Reference table providedc

LTPD/
AQL

nAQL

LTPD/
AQL

nAQL

44.890

.052

3.549

2.613

10.946

.0355

3.206

3.286

6.509

.0818

2.957

3.981

4.890

1.366

2.768

4.695

4.057

1.970

2.618

5.426

An Exercise cont.
Assume a manufacturer purchases wire
from an outside vendor. The wire vendor
has an accepted quality level of 1% and
accepts a 5% risk of rejecting lots
below this level. The manufacturer
considers lots with 3% defectives to be
unacceptable and assumes a 10% risk
of accepting a defective lot.
Develop a sample plan for the
manufacturer to be followed by the
inspection personnel

Summary
Acceptance sampling is used by
organizations to determine if
there processs are running
within a controlled limit and to
see if they should reject or
accept lots

Summary
There are many basic terms you
need to know to be able to
understand acceptance sampling

SPC, Accepts Lot, Reject Lot, Complete

Inspection, AQL, LTPD, Sampling Plans,
Producers Risk, Consumers Risk, Alpha,
Beta, Defect, Defectives, Attributes,
Variables.

Summary
Advantages/Disadvantages of
acceptance sampling
Purpose of acceptance sampling
When to use acceptance sampling
Equations involved
Exercise

Notes pages have many beneficial hints

and help better relate the material, the
answer to the exercise is also located on
a the notes page of the exercise.

Bibliography
(Foster, S.Thomas: Managing
Quality-An Integrative
Approach:pgs. 263-274:copyright
2001)
Quality Control in Furniture
Manufacturing:Internet
http://www.mtc.com.my/publicatio
ns/library/quality/qc40.htn

Bibliography
Process Analysis:Internet
http://www.statsofinc.com/textb
ook/stprocan.html
Quality Control: Internet
http://www.ms.ic.ac.uk/jeb/or/qco
ntrol.html