30 computer systems/software

Reduce inspection costs

with acceptance sampling
Regardless of your industry, you have to
monitor quality to avoid heavy losses in
time, money, and good will.
regarding entire lots of bulbs without having to inspect
every single light bulb your company receives. Although
it is ideal to have zero defects, some defects are
inevitable.
You and your light bulb supplier decide on

W
quality levels and risks that allow some defects while
hile there are a number of methods, maintaining profitability for both of you.
including control charts, available to You decide that the worst quality you are willing
protect you and your customers from to accept on a regular basis is 0.65 per cent defective
poor quality, these methods are not (AQL) and the quality that you want to reject most of the
always possible or appropriate. time is 5.5 per cent defective (RQL).
In such cases you might think that you have to The producer’s risk, also known as alpha, is the risk
inspect every part you receive or ship to ensure quality, you will reject a good lot, while the consumer’s risk, or
but 100 per cent inspection is impractical, as well as beta, is the risk you will accept a poor lot. We will use a
expensive and time consuming. producer’s risk of 0.05 and a consumer’s risk of 0.10.
Acceptance sampling is a practical, affordable It is important to work closely with your suppliers
alternative to costly 100 per cent inspection. It offers in determining your own AQL, RQL, and risk levels.
an efficient way to assess the quality of an entire lot of For instance, some quality practitioners may find the
product and to decide whether to accept or reject it. values of 0.65percent for AQL and 5.5percent for RQL
too high for their application. However, in our light bulb
Acceptance sampling plans example, we know that all light bulbs are checked upon
An acceptance sampling plan tells you how many units installation, so we are willing to accept more defective
to sample from a lot or shipment and how many defects bulbs during manufacturing.
you can allow in that sample. If you discover more than Your sampling plan is simple. Based on the Minitab
the allowed number of defects in the sample, you simply results shown in Fig. 1, you plan to randomly sample 96
reject the entire lot. light bulbs from the shipment. If you find two or fewer
When you create an acceptance sampling plan, defective bulbs, you will accept the entire lot of bulbs.
you specify the worst quality that you will accept on a Otherwise, the entire lot of bulbs will be rejected.
regular basis (referred to as AQL) and
the quality level that you will reject
(referred to as RQL). Set your standards
Generated Plan(s)
too low, and you risk wasting money on
a lot of poor quality. Set your standards
too high, and you could alienate your Sample Size 96
suppliers by rejecting acceptable lots. Acceptance Number 92
With AQL and RQL values, and
your statistical software package of
Accept lot if defective items in 96 sampled <= 2;
choice, you can calculate the sampling
requirements that match the risks you Otherwise reject.
are willing to take. In this article, we
will use Minitab Statistical Software to Fig. 1. Generate a sampling plan as an alternative to
create acceptance sampling plans. 100 per cent inspection.

Creating a plan
Suppose you work for a company that manufactures
kitchen appliances. You have many different suppliers
providing parts to your line for appliance assembly. For
this example, we will focus on one part, the appliance
light bulb.
Because incoming light bulbs can be defective, you
want to develop a sampling plan to make decisions
The Operating Characteristic Curve (OC Curve) –
which is illustrated in Fig. 2 – shows you the
probability that you will accept lots with various levels
of quality.
With this acceptance sampling plan, you will
accept lots that average 0.65 per cent defective (AQL)
about 98 per cent of the time, and lots that average

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 computer systems/software 31

5.5 per cent (RQL) only 10 per cent of the

time.

Comparing plans
The suggested sampling plan is a good
starting point, but other people who
are involved in the sampling procedure
may want to adjust the sample size and
acceptance number. In cases like the
scenarios described below, you can easily
generate multiple plans at the same time
and compare OC Curves to find the best
plan:
More convenient sample size: The
inspectors find it most convenient to inspect
10 bulbs at a time because of their test
fixture. They want you to change the sample
size from 96 to 90.
Smaller sample size: Looking to save
time, your supervisor suggests taking a
much smaller sample. He wants you to Fig. 2. The OC Curve shows the probability of accepting a lot at various
reduce the sample size from 96 to 50. quality levels.
Larger acceptance number: Your supplier
is nervous that his shipments will be unfairly rejected. The black line on the OC Curve shown in Fig. 3
He wants you to raise the acceptance number and accept represents your original sample plan with a sample size
at least 10 defective bulbs before returning an entire lot. of 96 (n) and an acceptance number of 2 (c).
The original sampling plan can easily be compared The red line represents a relatively small departure
with the three new scenarios using Minitab. from the original plan, showing a negligible reduction

Circle 31 or ✔ at www.engineerlive.com/ape
32 computer systems/software

By sharing this OC curve with your

supervisor, you can point out that the
resulting consumer risk is much too high for
you to consider reducing your sample size
to 50.
The OC curve can also be shown to
your supplier to prove that the resulting
consumer risk is much too high for you to
consider raising your acceptance number
to 10.
Perhaps you will evaluate other
acceptance numbers between 2 and 10.

Fig. 3. Use OC Curves to compare sampling plans.
in the producer’s risk and a slight increase in the
consumer’s risk. You are willing to change your sample
size to a more convenient one of 90 to keep your
inspectors happy.
The green line representing the sample size of 50 and
the blue line for the suggested acceptance number of 10
represents more significant changes to the sampling plan
which result in more risk than you are willing to accept.
Putting it to use
Acceptance sampling plans alone will
not magically improve or control your
processes. Instead, they offer a useful tool
to reduce your inspection costs by providing
statistically valid procedures to accept or
reject incoming material or final product.
They also allow you to easily create and
compare various plans to communicate with
your team members. m
Enter 32 or ✔ at www.engineerlive.com/ape
Janet Gess is a Statistical Technical Communications
Specialist and Michelle Paret is a Product Marketing
Manager with Minitab Inc, PA, USA. www.minitab.com

Real-time ethernet for critical applications

M oog FCS, which is part of Moog's

Industrial Group, is introducing
a combination of communication
interfaces based on real-time
Ethernet. Using advanced and proven
technology, the servo controllers are
said to increase the functionality and
boost the performance of aerospace
testing systems. They provide graphics,
accurate synchronisation of up to 500
control channels, reduced latency time
and complete management of safety
procedures to eliminate risk to the test
specimen.
Although real-time Ethernet
is now a common and proven
technology, many experts believe it
is not suited to critical applications
such as aerospace testing. However,
Moog FCS has developed a real-time
Ethernet interface that provides the
test system with a high bandwidth
and an unprecedented level of safety,
particularly for high-performance
aircraft, helicopter, and spacecraft
testing. The test specimen can be
protected against single-point failures
as well as dormant failures of any
part of the control system. No single
component should fail without being
detected. According to Moog FCS,
other systems using fibre optics or
legacy technologies cannot provide
the same level of safety based on a
system architecture supported by
real-time Ethernet.
The real-time Ethernet hardware
platform represents an efficient means
of optimising test performance for
Moog's customers running: aircraft
structural tests, iron bird tests,
landing gear, helicopter airframe,
rotor head and blade tests, engine
casing tests, fin actuation loading
tests, hydraulic system tests, load
calibration tests and spacecraft
structural integrity. The new hardware
architecture uses two different types
of Ethernet interfaces. The recently
launched Ethernet interface enables
real-time data transfer between the
command generator (Real Time Front
End) and the localised control loops
managed by the SmarTEST digital
servo controller. The new real-time
Ethernet interface uses specific and
dedicated protocol software for data
transfer. This helps provide reduced
latency while running tests. For
example, the quad-core industrial PC
processor technology combined with
the new Ethernet interface allows the
control of 256 control channels with a
command resolution of 200Hz and a
latency of 5ms for large iron bird test
systems with up to 640 look-up tables
and calculation channels.
A second type of Ethernet
interface is used for transfer of load
cell, position and spectrum data from
the load control system to the data
acquisition system. m
For more information, visit
www.moog.com

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