Title: Determining sampling plans in acceptance sampling to reduce producer and consumer risks

Authors: Siddharth Mahajan

Addresses: Indian Institute of Management, Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore, Karnataka 560076, India

Abstract: In this paper, we find the best sampling plan in acceptance sampling, to reduce producer and consumer risks. A sampling plan consists of two parameters, the sample size and the maximum allowed number of defectives. For a given sample size, there is a trade-off between the producer risk and the consumer risk. Which risk would be higher would depend on the other parameter which decides the sampling plan, the maximum allowed number of defectives. We show that as the sample size is increased, both producer and consumer risks can be reduced together. But increasing the sample size, means additional inspection cost for each and every sample. So, risk reduction would happen at a cost. Typically, the binomial distribution is used to determine the producer and consumer risks for a sampling plan. In the model, we use the normal approximation to the binomial. With the model, the sampling plan can be found very quickly, using Excel.

Keywords: acceptance sampling; consumer risks; producer risks; quality; risk reduction; sampling plans.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2013.057480

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2013 Vol.15 No.4, pp.462 - 474

Published online: 27 Dec 2013 *

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