Continuous sampling plans for Markov-dependent production processes under limited inspection capacity
A continuous sampling plan is a set of rules that provide a given Average Outgoing Quality (AOQ), ideally with the minimum of effort (as measured by the Average Fraction Inspected, or AFI). Most such plans are based on the assumption that the quality (either defective or not) of successive production units is uncorrelated. In this paper, we explore the impact of correlation in the production process on the design of a sampling plan when it is not possible to inspect long runs of production unit-by-unit. We shall generalize Dodge's continuous sampling plan on two counts, replacing Level 1 100% inspection by 100 f(o)% inspection, and considering the production process to be Markov dependent instead of consisting of independent Bernoulli trials. We derive formulae for the AOQ and AFI, and consider how best to choose the sampling plan parameters in the presence of nonzero correlation. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
continuous sampling markov-dependent average outgoing quality average fraction inspected dodge's plan fraction defective