Economic Design of Specifications for 100% Inspection with Imperfect Measurement Systems

Abstract

100% inspection plays an important role in today’s environment, such as airport security. The same is true for some industrial or other decision-making processes where the consequences of excessive deviations from target values are very high. We investigate the economic and statistical effects of inspection error on the design of specifications due to imperfect measurement systems. Two models are developed for single quality characteristic with consideration of inspection error under assumptions of constant and variable inspection costs. Models for bivariate quality characteristics are also proposed with considerations of inspection error. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the presented models which can be applied for the disposition of the output of any process for quality improvement.

Key Words:

• 100% inspection
• bivariate quality characteristics
• inspection error
• optimal specifications
• single quality characteristics

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Qianmei Feng

Qianmei Feng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Houston, TX. Her research interests are quality and reliability engineering, and applied statistics. She received the Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington, Seattle, WA in 2005. She is a member of IIE, INFORMS and Alpha Pi Mu.

Kailash C. Kapur

Kailash C. Kapur is a Professor, Industrial Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. He was the Director of Industrial Engineering at the University of Washington from January 1993 to September 1999. He was a Professor and the Director of the School of Industrial Engineering, University of Oklahoma (Norman, Oklahoma) from 1989–1992 and a professor in the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering at Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan from 1970–1989. Dr. Kapur has worked with General Motors Research Laboratories as a senior research engineer and with Ford Motor Company as a visiting scholar and the U.S. Army, Tank-Automotive Command as a reliability engineer. Dr. Kapur received the Ph. D. degree (1969) in Industrial Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. He has co-authored the book Reliability in Engineering Design, John Wiley & Sons, 1977. He has written chapters on reliability and quality engineering for several handbooks such as Industrial Engineering and Mechanical Design. He has published over sixty papers in technical, research, and professional journals. He received the Allan Chop Technical Advancement Award from the Reliability Division and the Craig Award from the Automotive Division of American Society for Quality. He is a Fellow of American Society for Quality, a Fellow of the Institute of Industrial Engineers, and a registered professional engineer.