Chapter 6.

1

Statistical Process Control
(Week 8)
L2 & L3 - X-bar and R Charts
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Jan 2008
Week 8 :
Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the lesson student should be able to

- understand the concept of SPC especially for
X-bar and R charts
- calculate and plot X-bar and R charts
- calculate the process mean and standard
deviation
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Jan 2008
Introduction to Statistical Process Control
(SPC)
What is Quality Control?:

Quality control is designed to prevent the production of products
that do not meet certain acceptance criteria.

Action could be taken by rejecting those products or

Some products would go on to be reworked, (it means that a
process is costly and time consuming).

In many cases, rework is more expensive than producing the
product.
Thus results in decreased productivity, customer
dissatisfaction, loss of competitive position, and higher cost.
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Jan 2008
Introduction to Statistical Process
Control (SPC)
Statistical process control (SPC), is a powerful tools
that implement the concept of prevention as a shift
from the traditional quality by inspection/correction.

SPC is a technique that employs statistical tools for
controlling and improving processes.

SPC is an important ingredient in continuous
process improvement (CPI) strategies. It uses
simple statistical means to control, monitor, and
improve processes.
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Jan 2008
Introduction to Statistical Process
Control (SPC)
Among the most commonly used tools of
SPC:
histograms
cause-and-effect diagrams
Pareto diagrams
control charts
scatter or correlation diagrams
run charts
process flow diagrams

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Jan 2008
Control Chart
The most important SPC tool is called control
charts:

graphical representations of process performance over
time

concerned with how (or whether) processes vary at
different intervals and identifying nonrandom or
assignable causes of variation.

provide a powerful analytical tool for monitoring process
variability and other changes in process mean
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Jan 2008




Figure 8-
1
A typical control
chart.



A typical control chart.
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Jan 2008
X-bar and R Charts
X-bar and Range, R Charts are a set of control
charts for variables data (data that is both
quantitative and continuous in measurement,
such as a measured dimension or time).

The X-bar chart monitors the process location
over time, based on the average of a series of
observations, called a subgroup.

The Range chart monitors the variation between
observations in the subgroup over time.
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Jan 2008
When to Use an X-bar / R Chart :


X-bar / Range charts are used when you can
rationally collect measurements in groups
(subgroups) of between two and ten observations.

The charts' x-axes are time based, so that the
charts show a history of the process.

The data is time-ordered; that is, entered in the
sequence from which it was generated.
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Jan 2008
X Bar Chart Calculations
The average, sometimes called X-Bar, is
calculated for a set of n data values as:
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Jan 2008
X Bar Chart Calculations
Sub-grouped data:
the average of the subgroups' averages,
sometimes called the estimate process
mean,
where n is the subgroup size and m is the total number of
subgroups included in the analysis.
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Jan 2008
X Bar Chart Calculations
UCL Upper Control Limit:






r A X UCL
X
2

where the constant A2 is tabulated for various sample sizes
in Appendix A Table VII.
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Jan 2008
X Bar Chart Calculations
LCL - Lower Control Limit:



where the constant A2 is tabulated for various sample sizes
in Appendix A Table VII.
r A X UCL
X
2

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Jan 2008
R Chart Calculations
Average Range

The average of the subgroup ranges
(R-bar) centre line
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Jan 2008
R Chart Calculations
UCL - Upper Control Limit:





where R-bar is the sample average range, and the
constants D4 is tabulated for various sample sizes in
Appendix A Table VII.
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Jan 2008
R Chart Calculations
LCL - Lower Control Limit:

where R-bar is the sample average range, and the
constants D3 is tabulated for various sample sizes in
Appendix A Table VII.
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Jan 2008
Process Mean and Process
Standard Deviation
Process mean:
Estimated by

Process standard deviation:
Estimated by
m
x
X
m
i
i

n A
d
d
r
2
2
2
3
where