Critical acceptance values and sample sizes of a variables sampling plan for very low fraction of defectives

Abstract

Acceptance sampling plans are practical tools for quality control applications, which involve quality contracting on product orders between the vendor and the buyer. Those sampling plans provide the vendor and the buyer rules for lot sentencing while meeting their preset requirements on product quality. In this paper, we introduce a variables sampling plan for unilateral processes based on the one-sided process capability indices C PU (or C PL ) , to deal with lot sentencing problem with very low fraction of defectives. The proposed new sampling plan is developed based on the exact sampling distribution rather than approximation. Practitioners can use the proposed sampling plan to determine accurate number of product items to be inspected and the corresponding critical acceptance value, to make reliable decisions. We also tabulate the required sample size n and the corresponding critical acceptance value C 0 for various α -risks, β -risks, and the levels of lot or process fraction of defectives that correspond to acceptable and rejecting quality levels.