A variables sampling plan based on Cpmk for product acceptance determination

Process capability indices are useful management tools, particularly in the manufacturing industry, which provide common quantitative measures on manufacturing capability and production quality. Most supplier certification manuals include a discussion of process capability analysis and describe the recommended procedure for computing a process capability index. Acceptance sampling plans have been one of the most practical tools used in classical quality control applications. It provides both vendors and buyers to reserve their own rights by compromising on a rule to judge a batch of products. Both sides may set their own safeguard line to protect their benefits. Two kinds of risks are balanced using a well-designed sampling plan. In this paper, we introduce a new variables sampling plan based on process capability index C-pmk to deal with product sentencing (acceptance determination). The proposed new sampling plan is developed based on the exact sampling distribution hence the decisions made are more accurate and reliable. For practical purpose, tables for the required sample sizes and the corresponding critical acceptance values for various producer's risk, the consumer's risk and the capability requirements acceptance quality level (AQL), and the lot tolerance percent defective (LTPD) are provided. A case study is also presented to illustrate how the proposed procedure can be constructed and applied to the real applications. (C) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.