Treating measurement uncertainty in industrial conformity control

Abstract

Every conformity control method based on measurements is subject to uncertainty, which distorts the decision. In the traditional conformity control approaches, this uncertainty is an inherent part of the deviation of the observed characteristic; however, the distribution of the real product characteristic may differ from the distribution of measurement uncertainty, which obscures the real conformity or nonconformity. The specification and consideration of this uncertainty are particularly necessary if it is high and/or the consequences associated with the decision errors are severe. This paper studies the effects of the cost structure associated with the decision outcomes and the skewness and kurtosis of the measurement uncertainty distribution. The proposed method can specify when and how the measurement uncertainty should be taken into account to increase the expected profit associated with the decision.