Statistical Quality Control

• Quality

By quality, we mean an attribute of the product that determines its fitness of use.
Quality means a level or standard which is turn, depends on our M’s besides
many other factors:
• Materials
• Manpower
• Machineries
• Management

• Statistical Quality Control (S.Q.C):

Statistical quality control (SQC) means planned collection and affective use of
data for studying causes of variation in quality cither or between processes, procedures,
materials, machines etc or over periods of time.

[This cause effect analysis is then fed back into the system with a view to
continuous action on the process of handling, manufacturing packaging, transporting
and delivery at end use.]

S.Q.C is a productivity enhancing & regularity technique (PERT) with three

factors.

• Management
• Methods &
• Mathematics

The main purpose of S.Q.C is to device statistical techniques, which would help
us in separate the assignable causes from the chance cause, thus enabling us to take
immediate remedial action whenever assignable causes are present.

• Types of Quality variations:

Quality variations are two types:

1) Chance causes of variation &
2) Assignable causes of variation.

• If assignable causes are zero then productivity will be good.

• Quality is increasing day by day, which is related to the factor money.
 • Chance causes of variation (Allowable variation):

The variation due to these causes is beyond the control of human hand and
cannot be avoided/prevented under any circumstances. The range of such variation is
known as natural tolerance of the process or allowable variation.

• Assignable causes of variation (Preventable variation):

The variation due to these causes is non-random or, the so-called assignable
causes and is termed as preventable variation of any production process.

• Important factors of Assignable causes of variation:

1. Sub-standard or defective raw materials.

2. New techniques or operation,
3. Negligence of operators.
4. Wrong or improper handling of machines,
5. Faulty equipment.
6. Unskilled or inexperienced technical staff and so on.

• Advantages of Quality Control in Industry:

1. Improvement in product quality & design.

2. Reduction in operating cost & losses.
3. Reduction in scrap (wastage).
4. Reduction in inspection.
5. Evaluation of scientific tolerance.
6. Improvement in employee morale.
7. Maintenance of operating efficiency.
8. Saving in excess uses of material.
9. Removing production bottle necks.
10. Quality consciousness.
11. Better productivity.

• Process Control:

The main objective in any production process is to control, maintain the quality of the
manufactured product, so that it conforms to quality standards. In other words, we want
to ensure that the proper defective items in the manufactured product is not too large.
This is called process control & is achieved through the technique of control chars
pioneered by Stewarts.
• Product Control:

By product control, we mean controlling the quality of the product by critical

examination at strategic points and this is achieved through ‘Sampling Inspection Plans
– pioneered by Dodge and Roming.
Product control aims at guarantying a certain quality level to the customer
regardless of what quality level is being maintained by the producer i.c the product
marketed by sales department does not contain a large no. of defective items.

• Control Chart:
The Shewhart control chart gives two answers of a problem faced in the industry:

1. To check whether the process is conforming to specified quality standard.

2. To improve the level of standard and reduce variability consistent with cost
consideration.

A typical control chart consists of the following three horizontal lines:

i) A central line (CL) to indicate the desired standard or the level of the
process.
ii) Upper control limit (UCL) and
iii) Lower control limit (LCL)
Example: For following data, the constructed control chart has drawn as
following: 12, 14, 15, 16, 23, 18, 19, 16, 17, and 14

Above figure shows the essential features of a control chart as applied to sample
averages. The sample averages are plotted, and if they fall within the control limits, the
process is said to be in a state of statistical control. A state of statistical control merely
means that only random causes are present. It does not necessarily mean that the
product meets specifications.
• Types of control charts:

There are two types of control charts:

A. Control chart for Variables and
B. Control chart for Attributes.

A. Control chart for Variables:

1. Charts for Mean ( x ) and Range (R).
2. Charts for Mean ( x ) and Standard deviation ( σ )

B. Control chart for Attributes:

1. Control chart for the no. of defects per unit (C-chart).
2. Control chart for the no. of fraction defectives (P-chart) and
3. Control chart for the no. of defectives (d-chart or np-chart).

• Analysis of Variance (ANOVA):

The analysis of variance is a technique for breaking the total variation observed
in the experimental data into different components, associated with the nature of
classification of the data. Each component subjected to a defined source of variation.

According to R.A. Fisher, “Analysis of variance is the separation of variance

ascribable to one group of causes from the variance ascribable to other group.”

• Difference between Defective & Defect:

An article that does not conform to one or more of the specifications is termed as
defective while any instance of articles lack of conformity to specifications is a defect.
Thus, every defective contains one or more of the defects.

A distance is made between a defect and a defective. A defect is a single

instance of nonconformance to some requirement, whereas a defective is a unit
containing one or more defects.
• 3 σ Control Limits:

The limits of variation on a control chart based on µt + 3σt & µt − 3σt which are termed
respectively the UCL & LCL are known as 3 σ control limits. The + 3 σ control limits
are used to distinguish between random and specific causes of variation.

•
• C-Chart:

The C-chart is used for the control of number of defects per unit. C-chart is
particularly effective when the number of defects possible on a unit is large but the
percentage for any simple defect is small.

The sample size for the C-chart is usually any one of the fixed time, length, area,
a single unit or group of units. In the case of yarn, the fixed length constitutes the unit of
sample.

For no of defects per unit,

Total ( Summationo f )noofdefect s
The average No of defects, C =
Tota ln oofsamples
Centre Line, L = C
Upper control limit, UCL = C + 3 C
Lower control limit, LCL = C + 3 C

It may be noted that when the lower control limit is negative it is taken as zero.

• P-Chart:
The P-chart is used whenever the quality characteristic observed in the
classification of items as defective. It is the result of inspection and is also most
useful when tests are of a group or no group nature.

For fraction defective,

Summationo fnoofdefec tives
Average no of fraction defective, P = Noofsample xxNoofsamp le sin spected

Noofdefect ive sin allthesamp les ∑ np

P= =
Tota ln oofitem sin allthesamp les ∑ n
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