Acceptance Sampling

Introduction

Acceptance sampling (AS) is one of the oldest statistical techniques in the area of statistical quality control. It is performed out of the line production, most commonly before it, for deciding on incoming batches, but also after it, for evaluating the final product (see Duncan 1986; Stephens 2001; Pandey 2007; Montgomery 2009; and Schilling and Neubauer 2009, among others). Accepted batches go into the production line or are sold to consumers; the rejected ones are usually submitted to a rectification process. A sampling plan is defined by the size of the sample (samples) taken from the batch and by the associated acceptance–rejection criterion. The most widely used plans are given by the Military Standard tables, developed during the World War II, and first issued in 1950. We mention MIL STD 105E (1989) and the civil version ANSI/ASQC Z1.9 (1993) of the American National Standards Institution and the American Society for Quality Control.

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