Acceptance Sampling

Acceptance Sampling
• Acceptance sampling is an important field of
statistical quality control that was popularized by
Dodge and Romig and originally applied by the
U.S. military for the testing of bullets during
World War II.
• Dodge reasoned that a sample should be picked
at random from the lot, and on the basis of
information that was yielded by the sample, a
decision should be made regarding the
disposition of the lot.
 Acceptance Sampling
• In general, the decision is either to accept
or reject the lot. This process is called Lot
Acceptance Sampling or just Acceptance
Sampling.
• Acceptance sampling is "the middle of the
road" approach between no inspection and
100% inspection.
 Acceptance Sampling
• Acceptance sampling: Form of inspection
applied to lots or batches of items before or
after a process, to judge conformance with
predetermined standards

– Sampling before typically is done to supplier material

– Sampling after involves sampling finished items
before shipment or finished components prior to
assembly
 Risks of Acceptance Sampling
• Producers Risk
– The risk associated with a producer rejecting
a lot of materials that actually have good
quality
• Also referred to
as a Type I Error
 Risks of Acceptance Sampling
• Consumers Risk
– The risk associated with a consumer
accepting a lot of materials that actually have
poor quality
• Also referred to
as a Type II Error
 Typical Application of
Acceptance Sampling
• A vendor delivers a product to a
manufacturing company
– The product is a raw
material used by the
company
 Typical Application of
Acceptance Sampling
• A sample of the shipment is taken
– Quality characteristics of the units in the
sample are inspected.
 Typical Application of
Acceptance Sampling
• Based on the observations made, the
decision is made to either accept or reject
the entire shipment
 Typical Application of
Acceptance Sampling
• The decision to accept or reject the
shipment is based on the following set
standards:
– Lot size = N
– Sample size = n
– Acceptance number = c
– Defective items = d
• If d <= c, accept lot
• If d > c, reject lot
 Acceptance Sampling Plan
• Mr. Smith owns and operates a
manufacturing plant.

– He receives a shipment of 1,000 sheets of

glass.

– Of the shipment, Mr. Smith chooses to sample

50 sheets.
 Acceptance Sampling Plan

• If more than 2 are defective, he is sending

back the entire shipment to the supplier.

• Mr. Smith observes 5 defective sheets of

glass.
 Acceptance Sampling Plan
• Therefore, according to the set standards
mentioned above:

– N = 1,000
– n = 50
– c=2
– d=5
 Acceptance Sampling Plan
• What should Mr. Smith do in reference to
the number of defective items
observed????
•Remember, if d > c, reject lot

Since c = 2, and d = 5…
Mr. Smith should
reject the lot of
1,000 sheets of glass
 Moon Light Jeans

• MoonLight Jeans store receives a shipment of

300 pairs of jeans from its warehouse.
• It is common practice for the store to sample 5%
of the total received.
• The acceptance number under any and all
circumstances for MoonLight Jeans is 10.
 Moon Light Jeans

• Of the 15 pairs of jeans observed, 2 were

defective.

• What conclusion should the store manager

come to based on this information?
 MoonLight Jeans
• The store manager has just found out that
the clerk who inspected the samples made
a huge mistake…

• The actual number of defective pairs of

jeans sampled was 12.
 Moon Light Jeans
• What type of risk is involved with the error
made at Moon Light Jeans?
• How might this error affect the store and
their customers?
 Operating Characteristics (OC)
Curves
• OC curves are graphs which
show the probability of accepting
a lot given various proportions of
defects in the lot
• X-axis shows % of items that are
defective in a lot- “lot quality”
• Y-axis shows the probability or
chance of accepting a lot
• As proportion of defects
increases, the chance of
accepting lot decreases
• Example: 90% chance of
accepting a lot with 5%
defectives; 10% chance of
accepting a lot with 24%
defectives
 AQL, LTPD, Consumer’s Risk (α) &
Producer’s Risk (β)
• AQL is the small % of defects that
consumers are willing to accept;
order of 1-2%
• LTPD is the upper limit of the
percentage of defective items
consumers are willing to tolerate
• Consumer’s Risk (α) is the chance
of accepting a lot that contains a
greater number of defects than the
LTPD limit; Type II error
• Producer’s risk (β) is the chance a
lot containing an acceptable quality
level will be rejected; Type I error