UNIT – IV

STATISTICAL QUALITY CONTROL

Quality control refers to systematic control of all these factors and can be defined
as a system that integrates quality development, quality maintenance and quality
improvement efforts of all people for production of goods and services that ensures
customer satisfaction.
Some objectives of quality control are as follows:
1. To reduce number of defectives and thus minimize overall cost of production.
2. To achieve interchangeability of products.
3. To assess quality of raw materials, semi-finished goods and finished goods at various
stages of production process.
4. To reduce wastages of various resources used during production process.
5. To develop products/services ensuring satisfaction of customers.
6. Developing a culture of quality consciousness in organization.
DEFINITION AND FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
Statistical Quality Control (SQC) can be defined as statistical evaluation of
output of a process during production. It consists of systematic collection, recording and
analysis of data wherein periodic samples from processes are taken and compared with
a pre-determined standard.
SQC is based on law of large numbers and theory of probability. One of the main
objectives of SQC is assuring that output of a process is random such that future output
would also be random in nature.
1. Natural or random causes of variation: Natural variations are inherent in a process,
and these are also referred to as chance variations. All processes providing goods or
services display some amount of natural variation in output due to many minor factors.
These types of variations are beyond human control. A process that is operating with
only chance causes of variation present is said to be in statistical control.
2. Assignable causes of variation: The second type of variability seen in process output
is due to assignable causes of variation. As compared to natural variation, it is possible
to identify and eliminate assignable causes of variation. Typical sources of assignable
causes of variation are due to defective materials, tool wear, human factors as fatigue, etc.
A process that operates in the presence of assignable causes is said to be an out-of-control
process.
Chance variations cause about 85% of the problems in process, while assignable
variations account for only 15% of the problems. Chance variations may be reduced by
changing the process and this can be done through management efforts. It’s the
management responsibility to control the chance variations. To do so, there may be more
efforts needed in better machine procurement, better training, better environment and
temperature control, etc.
Assignable variations may be reduced by controlling the process with proper
identification and rectification of causes. Workers, who are closer to machines (as
compared to managers), can understand the causes and rectification of assignable
variations. Hence, it is workers' responsibility to control the assignable causes by first
identifying the variations in the product/service parameters, relating them to the causes
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in the process variation or process inputs and finally solving them by proper rectification
measures. For the identification of assignable variations, we use control charts.

CONTROL CHARTS
Control charts are the plots used to monitor outputs or inputs of a process, which
produces a product or service for meeting the customer's requirements. When we use
control charts to monitor the processes, it is called statistical process control (SPC).
Control chart is a time ordered plot of sample statistics for analyzing random and
non-random variations that are present in the output of a process. There are two limits
(upper and lower) for control charts that separate random and non-random variations.
Larger value is called Upper Control Limit (UCL) and smaller value is called Lower
Control Limit (LCL).

A process is said to be not in control if data falls outside of either upper or lower
control limits. There are two types of data for control charts, viz., variables and attributes.
Variable data are those which can be measured on a continuous scale. Attribute data are
usually counted. Two types of control charts are shown in Figure.
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CONTROL CHARTS FOR VARIABLES

There are two types of control charts for variables, namely mean control charts
and range control charts.
Mean control charts referred to as X-bar chart monitors the central tendency of a
process. Range control charts (R-charts) are used for monitoring process dispersion.
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Uses of mean and range charts
X-bar chart and R-charts are widely used by quality engineers. Mean chart shows
changes in process average and are affected by change in process variability. This chart
is widely used to detect steady progress changes such as tool wear and erratic cyclic shifts
in a process. R-charts detects changes in process dispersion. Due to these different
perspectives, both charts are together used by quality engineers for monitoring the same
process rather than using either of them individually. Mean chart when used with R-chart
conveys better picture to a manager of when to leave a process alone and when to hunt
for assignable causes of variations in a process.
Control Charts for Attributes
Control charts for attributes are used in situations where process characteristic are
counted rather than being measured. Two types of attribute control charts widely used
are (i) p-chart or fraction defective chart, and (ii) c-chart, number of defects per unit.
When the data analysed consists of two categories of items and if both of them can
be counted, p-chart is appropriate. Consider the example of inspection of glass bottles
after they are manufactured in a factory. In this case, we can count the number of good
and defective (those that leak) glass bottles. Thus, here p-chart can be used.
On the other hand, consider the number of accidents that occurred at crossroad
during a certain period of time. In this case, we can readily count the number of accidents
that have occurred. It is difficult to get the number of accidents that had not occurred
during the same period of time. c-chart can appropriately be used for this case.
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Comparison of Variable and Attribute Charts

PROCESS IMPROVEMENT USING CONTROL CHART

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ADVANTAGES OF CONTROL CHARTS
Advantages of control charts are as follows:
1. It indicates whether a process is in control or not at any particular point of time.
2. Control charts helps to detect unusual variations taking place in a process and thus
variability present in a process can be determined.
3. It ensures that products of required quality levels are produced.
4. Control charts give an indication of when a process goes out of control. Thus, suitable
remedial action can be taken for it. This helps in reducing the percentage of scrap and
rejection levels in production process to a greater extent.
5. Reputation of organisation is enhanced by increased customer satisfaction.
6. The tolerance limits can be set with the use of control charts.

Control Chart Evidences for Investigation

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PROCESS CAPABILITY
Variability of a process can impact quality of a product that is manufactured.
Tolerances, control limits and process variability are commonly used terms for referring to
variability of a process output. It is seen that control limits are based on sampling
variability, but sampling variability is a function of process variability. A process may be
under statistical control, but still the output of the process may or may not conform to
required specifications. This is the reason why capability of a process has to be taken into
consideration. The inherent variability of a process output relative to variation allowed
by the design specifications is referred to as process capability. Process variability is
measured in terms of process standard deviations.
ACCEPTANCE SAMPLING
Acceptance sampling provides an established way to use statistics in inspection
for ensuring quality. It involves the application of statistical sampling plans, which
prescribe the methodology for selecting sample from a finished output and analysing the
information of the sampling plan in maintaining a desired level of quality. Main objective
of acceptance sampling is to decide whether a lot or batch of items conforms to laid down
quality standards. Lots of items that satisfy these standards are accepted and those that
do not satisfy these standards are rejected.
Use of Acceptance Sampling
• Monitor the quality of incoming material or parts at a desired level.
• Monitor an inspection plan, which involves taking an accept/reject decision about the
quality of big batch of items.
• Monitor the after-effect of the process, i.e., only after the production ends (rather than
process capabilities tests like Mean, R charts) which are process-control techniques.

OPERATING CHARACTERISTICS CURVE

The operating characteristics curve (OC-curve) for a quality attribute sampling
plan is a graphical representation of fraction defectives in a lot against the probability of
acceptance. It allows us to compare sampling plans to understand the behaviour of
different lots with unknown, varying fraction defectives. The ability of a sampling plan
to discriminate between lots of high and low quality is described by Operating
Characteristic (OC) curve.
: Producer's risk, defined as: probability of a batch being good or even better than AQL
(Acceptable Quality Level) but yielding a bad sample and thus getting rejected. Thus, it
is the probability of rejecting a good lot, which otherwise would have been accepted.
β: Consumer's risk, defined as: probability of a lot being bad or even worse than the
limiting quality but yielding a good sample and thus getting accepted. Thus, it is the
probability of a defective batch being accepted which otherwise would have been
rejected.
AQL: Acceptable quality level, defined as the proportion of had components in a lot
such that the lots having less than this proportion have high probability of getting
accepted.
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LTPD: Lot Tolerance Percentage Defective, defined as the proportion of bad components
(somewhat larger than AQL) in a lot such that the lot having more than this proportion
of defective components have a small probability of getting accepted.

In general, consumers are willing to accept a lot that contains small percentages of
defective items (usually in neighborhood of 1% to 2%) if associated cost related to these
defective items is low. This is known as Acceptable Quality Level (AQL). Take the case
of a producer who sends a lot of AQL. The probability that it will be rejected is known as
producer's risk. It is denoted by alpha () or the probability of making a Type I error.
However, there is an upper limit on percentage of defective items which the
customers are prepared to tolerate in accepted lots, known as Lot Tolerance Percent
Defective (LTPD). Definitely, a consumer would not like to accept lots having defective
percentages that exceeds LTPD. Probability of acceptance of lots that contain defective
items exceeding LTPD is known as consumer's risk. It is denoted by beta (β) or the
probability of making a Type II error.
Many sampling plans are designed for  = 5% and β = 10%, although other
combinations are also used.
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SINGLE SAMPLING PLAN (SSP)
In this, the decision regarding the acceptance or rejection is made after drawing a
sample from a bigger lot. Inspection is done and if the defectives exceed a certain
number the lot is rejected. Otherwise, the lot is accepted when the number of defectives
are less than the acceptance number. A flow chart for SSP is presented below in Figure.

DOUBLE SAMPLING PLAN (DSP)

In this, a small sample is first drawn. If the number of defectives is less than or
equal to an acceptance number (C1), the lot is accepted. If the number of defectives is
more than another acceptance number (C2), which is higher than CI' then the lot is
rejected. If in case, the number of defectives in the inspection lies between C2 and C1,
then a second sample is drawn. The entire lot is accepted or rejected on the basis of
outcome of second inspection.
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A flow chart of DSP is given in Figure.
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SAMPLING PLANS
The key element of acceptance sampling is choosing an appropriate sampling
plan. A sampling plan specifies information on lot size (N), number of samples that are
to be taken (n) and the acceptance/rejection criteria. Depending upon the situation,
quality engineers' use a variety of sampling plans such as single sampling plan, double
sampling plan, multiple sampling plans, etc.
1. Single sampling plan: In this type of sampling plan, from lot size containing N number
of items, a sample size of n number of items is taken. An acceptance number c is also
specified. Now, each item in the sample is inspected. A classification of each
of them as to whether they are good or defective is done. If the sample contains more
than specified number of defectives c, whole lot is rejected. On the other hand, if the
number of defectives in sample is less than c, whole lot is accepted.
2. Double sampling plan: Here, the acceptance and rejection of a lot size N is based on
two sample sizes. Two values, a lower level c1 and an upper level c2 are specified for
number of defective items in this type of sampling plan.
A first sample is taken using these values as decision rule. In case, number of
defectives is less than or equal to c1, the whole lot is accepted and sampling is terminated.
On the other hand, if the number of defectives exceeds c2 the entire lot is rejected.
If the number of defectives falls somewhere in between c1 and c2, a second sample
is taken. The number of defectives in both samples is compared to a third value c3. If the
combined number of defectives does not exceed that value, whole lot is accepted. Else,
whole lot is rejected.
3. Multiple sampling plans: A multiple sampling plan accepts or rejects a lot depending
upon results obtained from several samples drawn from the lot. In case, the cumulative
number of defectives in a sample exceeds upper limit specified for that sample, the
sampling procedure is terminated and the lot is rejected. On the other hand, if the
cumulative number of defectives is less than or equal to lower limit, the sampling is
terminated and whole lot is passed. Another sample is taken if number falls between
the two limits. This process is continued until the lot is either accepted or rejected.