Acceptance Sampling

Definition
It is the process of evaluating a portion of the product or
material in a lot for the purpose of accepting or rejecting the
lot as either conforming or not conforming to quality.
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.
Important Aspects of Sampling
It is the purpose of acceptance sampling to sentence lots,
not to estimate the lot quality.
Acceptance-sampling plans do not provide any direct
form of quality control.
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.
 Situations to use Acceptance Sampling
When test is destructive
When cost of 100% inspection is high with respect to
passing a nonconforming unit.
When many similar units need to be inspected. Sampling
vs 100% Better or as good as 100%.
Manual inspection results boredom, fatigue monotonous
and tend to miss.
When information concerning producers quality not
known/available.
When automated inspection is not available
 Advantage
 It is usually less expensive because there is less
inspection.
There is less handling of the product, hence reduced
damage.
It is applicable to destructive testing.
Fewer personnel are involved in inspection activities.
It often greatly reduces the amount of inspection error.
The rejection of entire lots as opposed to the simple return
of defectives often provides a stronger motivation to the
supplier for quality improvements.
 Disadvantage
• There are risks of accepting “bad” lots and rejecting
“good” lots.
• Less information is usually generated about the product or
about the process that manufactured the product.
• Acceptance sampling requires planning and
documentation of the acceptance-sampling procedure
whereas 100% inspection does not.
 Types of Acceptance Sampling
Attributes
 We classify things using
attributes
 A stop light can be one of
three colors: red, yellow, or
green
 The weather can be sunny,
cloudy, raining, or snowing
 A part can be conforming or
nonconforming
Variables
 We measure things using
variables
 The temperature of the oven
is 350° F
 The tire pressure is 37
pounds per square inch
(psi).
 The critical dimension for
this part number is 3.47
inches.
 Sampling Method
Simple Random Sampling:
Selecting a sample in such a way that each item in a lot has
an equal chance of being selected, is called random
sampling.
Stratified Sampling:
In large lots, the difficulties of random selection may be so
great that it may be advisable to adopt stratified
(proportional) sampling.
Contd…
Systematic Sampling:
When the item in a lot are presented in an orderly manner,
(such as piles of mild steel sheets or stack of cement bags) it
is possible to considerably simplify the selection of a
random sample of the required size.
Cluster Sampling:
When the lot submitted for inspection consists of certain
groups of clusters of items, it may be advantageous and
economical to select a few clusters of items in the selected
clusters
Contd…
Two Stage Sampling:
When the lot submitted for inspection consists of larger
number of packages each consisting of a number of items, it
may not be economical to select few packages and inspect
all the items in these packages (as in case of cluster
sampling).
The sample is selected in two stages
a) In the first stage a desired number of packages ( primary units)
are selected at random
b) In the second stage, the required number of items are chosen at
random from the selected primary units
 Operating Characteristics (OC) Curve
An important measure of the performance of an acceptance
sampling plan.
 Curve plots the probability of accepting the lot versus the lot
percent non-conforming or lot fraction defectives.
 Show probability that a lot with certain fraction defective will
be either accepted or rejected.
In a single sampling plan three parameters are specific
N = lot size from which the sample are drawn
n = sample size
C = acceptance number
Contd…
If the sampling plan is N=100, n=5, C=2.
It means take a random sample of 5 from a lot of 100, if
the sample contains more than 2 defectives, reject the lot
otherwise accept the lot
 1.0
Producer’s Risk (α)
Probability of Acceptance

Quality Region

Objectionable
Acceptable

Quality Region

Indifferent
Quality Region Consumer’s Risk (β)
AQL LTPD 1.0
Proportion of Defective (p’)

OC Curve
Contd…
The probability associated with rejecting a high-quality
lot is denoted by alpha (α) and is termed the producer’s
risk.
The probability associated with accepting a low-quality
lot is denoted by the letter beta (β) and is termed the
consumer’s risk.
The selection of particular values for AQL, α, LTPD, and
β is an economic decision based on a cost trade-off or,
more typically, on company policy or contractual
requirements.
 Quality Indices
Acceptable Quality Level (AQL)
It represents the maximum proportion of defectives which
the consumer finds definitely acceptable.
It is the percentage defective that can be tolerated without
any serious effect upon further processing or an customer
relations
Rejectable Quality Level (RQL)
Also known as Lot Tolerance Percent Defective (LTPD)
It represents the proportion of defectives which the
consumers finds definitely unacceptable.
Contd…
Indifference Quality Level (IQL)
 This is a quality level somewhere between AQL and RQL
It is frequently defined as the quality level having a
probability of acceptance of 0.50 for a given sampling plan
Average Outgoing Quality(AOQ)
It represents the average % defective in the outgoing
products after the inspection, including all accepted and all
rejected lots have been 100% inspected and defectives
replaced by non-defectives
Contd…
Pa p  N  n 
AOQ 
N
n = sample size
N = lot size
p’ = fraction defective
Pa = probability of acceptance

If the sample size is much less as compared to lot size

AOQ = Pa.p’
 Sampling Plan
Sampling plan may be grouped into three categories:
Single sampling plan
Double sampling plan
Multiple sampling plan
Contd…
Single Sampling Plan:
When a decision on acceptance or rejection of the lot is
made on the basis of only one sample, the acceptance plan
is known as a single sample plan
If the sampling plan is N=50, n=5, c=1
 It means, take a sample of 5 items from a lot of 50, if the sample
contains more than 1 defective reject the lot, otherwise accept the
lot.
Contd…
Double Sampling Plan:
When the decision on acceptance or rejection of the lot is
based on two samples, the acceptance plan is known as double
sampling plan.
If the sample plan is N= 500, n = 35, n2 = 50, c1 = 1 , c2 = 4,
then
 0 or 1 defective in the first sample
 2 defective in the first sample and 0,1 or 2 defective in second

sample
 3 defective in the first sample and 0 or 1 defective in second sample

 4 defective in the first sample and 0 defective in second sample

Contd…
Multiple Sampling Plan:
It is generally used when three or more samples of stated
size are permitted and when the decision on acceptance
or rejection must be reached after a stated number of
samples.
Sample Sample Combined Samples
Size
Size Acceptance Rejection
Number Number
First n1 n1 c1 r1
Second n2 n1+n2 c2 r2
Third n3 n1+n2+n3 c3 r3
Fourth n4 n1+n2+n3+n4 c4 r4
Fifth n5 n1+n2+n3+n4+n5 c5 r5
 Characteristics of Good Acceptance Plan
The index ( AQL, AOQL, etc.) used to define ‘quality’
should reflect the needs of the consumer and producer and
not to be chosen primarily for statistical convenience.
The sampling risk should be known in quantitative terms
(the OC curve). The producer should have adequate
protection against the rejection of good lots; the consumer
should be protected against the acceptance of bad lots.
The plan should minimize the total cost of inspection
Contd…
The pan should be flexible enough to reflect changes in
lot size, quality of product submitted and any other
permitted factors.
The measurements required by plan should provide
information useful in estimating individual lot quality and
long run quality.
 Single Sampling Double Sampling Multiple
Plan Plan Sampling Plan
Average no. of Largest In between single Lowest
pieces inspected and multiple plan
per lot
Cost of Lowest In between single Largest
administration and multiple plan

Information Largest In between single Least

available regarding and multiple plan
prevailing quality
level
Acceptability to Less (gives only Most acceptable Indecision is
producers one chance of continued for a
passing the lot) long term

Table: Comparison between Single, Double and Multiple Sampling Plan

 Variable Sampling Plan
In variables plans, measurement of a specified quality
characteristic from sample a simple statistic(e.g., sample
mean) and the observed value is compared with an allowable
value defined in the plan.
A decision is then made to accept or reject the lot.
When applicable, variables plans provide the same degree of
consumer protection as attributes plans while using
considerably smaller samples.
 Advantage of Variable Sampling
Equal protection to an attribute sampling plan with a
much smaller sample size.
Variables sampling plans allow the determination of how
close to nominal or a specification limit the process is
performing.
Attribute plans either accept or reject a lot; variables plans
give information on how well or poorly the process is
performing.
 Disadvantages
Unlike attribute sampling plans, separate characteristics
on the same parts will have different averages and
dispersions, resulting in a separate sampling plan for each
characteristic.
Variables plans are more complex in administration.
Variables gauging is generally more expensive than
attribute gauging.
In addition, for variables sampling plans it is assumed that
the quality characteristic under study is normally
distributed.
Thank You