Elliptical safety region plots for C pk

Abstract

The process capability index C pk is widely used when measuring the capability of a manufacturing process. A process is defined to be capable if the capability index exceeds a stated threshold value, e.g. C pk >4/3. This inequality can be expressed graphically using a process capability plot, which is a plot in the plane defined by the process mean and the process standard deviation, showing the region for a capable process. In the process capability plot, a safety region can be plotted to obtain a simple graphical decision rule to assess process capability at a given significance level. We consider safety regions to be used for the index C pk . Under the assumption of normality, we derive elliptical safety regions so that, using a random sample, conclusions about the process capability can be drawn at a given significance level. This simple graphical tool is helpful when trying to understand whether it is the variability, the deviation from target, or both that need to be reduced to improve the capability. Furthermore, using safety regions, several characteristics with different specification limits and different sample sizes can be monitored in the same plot. The proposed graphical decision rule is also investigated with respect to power.