A MAGNITUDE-ROBUST CONTROL CHART FOR MONITORING AND ESTIMATING STEP CHANGES IN A POISSON RATE PARAMETER

Abstract

Statistical process control charts are intended to assist operators in detecting process changes. If a process change does occur, the control chart should detect the change quickly. If the operator is provided with an estimate as to when the process changed, the search to find the special cause can be more easily facilitated. We investigate a process-monitoring tool for Poisson count data that quickly responds to process mean count rate changes regardless of the magnitude of the change, while supplying useful diagnostic information. A likelihood ratio approach was used to develop a control chart for a permanent step change in a Poisson process rate parameter. The average run length (ARL) performance of this chart is compared to that of several Poisson cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts. Our performance results show that the proposed chart performs better than any one CUSUM chart over a wide range of potential shift magnitudes. The proposed chart also provides maximum likelihood estimates of the time and the magnitude of the process shift. These crucial change point diagnostics can greatly enhance the special cause investigation.