A Sampling Policy for the Reduction of Quality Cost and Improvement of Accepted Percentage in Company L

Abstract

The reduction of the time and resources spent inspecting product is critical to the success of Company L's continued resourcing efforts. The use of Mil‐Std and other sampling plans with acceptance numbers greater than zero usually results in increased inspection sizes and potential for controversy in inspection results between inspectors. The time and resources used to complete these outgoing inspections are directly related to the amount of product currently required to be inspected in order to determine the acceptance or rejection of a lot of finished goods. This paper proposes a new sampling policy that will allow Company L to reduce the size of outgoing inspections. The data used in the paper are from 2006 to 2007. It is a combination of Overseas Inspection reports from all suppliers as well as sales volumes for products sold to Company L's partner companies. There are currently over 80 suppliers that manufacture products for Company L. The major finding of this paper is that it is possible to reduce inspection size while still maintaining, or in most cases reducing, the risks associated with sample inspections. This will be accomplished by switching from the current Mil‐Std plan to a Zero acceptance number sampling plan.

Citation

Rothwell, M., Park, E. and Kim, D. (2009), "A Sampling Policy for the Reduction of Quality Cost and Improvement of Accepted Percentage in Company L", Asian Journal on Quality, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 99-113. https://doi.org/10.1108/15982680911021223