Determination of optimum economic inspection by economic control chart design and by machine efficiency estimation: An application in weaving industry

In this paper, two different approaches are proposed to determine and analyze the optimum economic inspection policy for production quality control. One of these approaches we propose is a reinterpretation of Duncan's economic and statistical control chart design methodology. The other approach is based on a new interpretation of the machine efficiency concept and estimation. It is shown that in this context of application both of these tools used, traditionally used for different purposes, produce similar results. Finally, the study shows that the production efficiency estimation tools can also be used for the production quality control purposes. In both approaches, it is assumed that the deterioration of the considered quality parameters complies with the exponential distribution. The application of these two different approaches is illustrated for the textile weaving industry. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved