Q: I have a question about how to use ANSI/ASQ Z1.4-2008 Sampling Procedures and Tables for Inspection by Attributes.
I am looking to achieve a 99.5% production yield. How do I calculate that using the Acceptance Quality Limit (AQL) in this standard? Is it as simple as taking (100-AQL) to calculate the expected yield?
A: The ANSI Z1.4-2008 standard is not intended for calculating production yield or expected production yield. The AQL is the maximum percent non-conforming that can be considered acceptable as a process average. Typically we set this as the percent defective that would be accepted at a 95% confidence. If you want to sample such that you have 95% confidence that the average production yield is 99.5%, you can find a sampling plan with an AQL of 0.5%. Also, please understand that the tables in the standard are not exact value for AQL. Using the binomial distribution (or hypergeometric for sampling with no replacement) you can calculate the exact probability.
Steven Walfish
Secretary, U.S. TAG to ISO/TC 69
ASQ CQE
Statistician, GE Healthcare
http://statisticaloutsourcingservices.com/
For more on this topic, please visit ASQ’s website.