AS 2490—1997

ISO 3951:1989

Australian Standard
This is a free 7 page sample. Access the full version at http://infostore.saiglobal.com.

Sampling procedures and charts for

inspection by variables for percent
nonconforming
 This Australian Standard was prepared by Committee QR/4, Statistical Quality
Procedures. It was approved on behalf of the Council of Standards Australia on
14 February 1997 and published on 5 May 1997.

The following interests are represented on Committee QR/4:

Australian Organisation for Quality
Australian Quality Council
Bureau of Steel Manufacturers
CSIRO - Division of Mathematics and Statistics
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National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia

Quality Society of Australasia
Statistical Society of Australia
Queensland University of Technology
University of Wollongong

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This Standard was issued in draft form for comment as DR 96355.

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 AS 2490—1997

Australian Standard
This is a free 7 page sample. Access the full version at http://infostore.saiglobal.com.

Sampling procedures and charts

for inspection by variables for
percent nonconforming

Originated as AS 2490— 1981.

Second editi on 1997.

PUBLISHED BY STANDARDS AUSTRALIA

(STANDARDS ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA)
1 THE CRESCENT, HOMEBUSH, NSW 2140
ISBN 0 7337 1046 8
 ii

PREFACE

This Standard was prepared by the Joint Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand Committee
QR/4 on Statistical Quality Procedures as an Australian Standard.
The Standard is identical with and has been reproduced from ISO 3951:1989, Sampling procedures
and charts for inspection by variables for percent nonconforming.
This Standard supersedes AS 2490— 1981, which was based on ISO 3951:1981 and therefore is
consistent with the changes that have occurred in the evolution of ISO 3951.
This Standard continues to be complimentary to AS 1199 and AS 1399, since it provides alternative
methods of sampling inspection indexed in terms of ‘acceptable quality levels’ (AQL). It should be
noted, however, that the variables sampling plans given in this Standard can be more economical in
that they require relatively smaller sample sizes (for a particular value of AQL) since more effective
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use can be made of data from the sample results if the measurements can be assumed to follow a
normal distribution.
The theory of this Standard assumes independence of the data. Hence this Standard should not be
applied where the data may be highly auto-correlated, either as a result of auto-correlation of the
production process or the sampling process or both.
As this Standard is reproduced from an International Standard, the following applies:
(a) Its number does not appear on each page of text and its identity is shown only on its cover
and title page.
(b) In the source text, ‘this international Standard’ should read ‘this Australian Standard’.
(c) A full point substitutes for a comma when referring to a decimal point.
For the purposes of this Standard, the ISO references should be modified by replacing references to
ISO Standards with references to Australian Standards, as follows:
Reference to International Standard Australian Standard
ISO AS
2854 Statistical interpretation of data— —
Techniques of estimation and
tests relating to means and
variances
2859 Sampling procedures for —
inspection by attributes
2859-0 Part 0: Introduction to the 1399 Guide to AS 1199 —Sampling
ISO 2859 attribute sampling procedures and tables for
system inspection by attributes
2859-1 Part 1:Sampling plans indexed by 1199 Sampling procedures and tables
acceptable quality level (AQL) for inspection by attributes
for lot-by-lot inspection
2859-2 Part 2:Sampling plans indexed by —
limiting quality (LQ) for isolated
lot inspection
2859-3 Part 3:Skip-lot sampling —
procedures
3534 Statistics — Vocabulary and —
symbols
5725 Accuracy (trueness and precision) —
of measurement methods and
results
NOTE: The ISO Standard also makes reference to ISO 5479. This is still at the Draft International
Standard stage and refers to ISO/DIS 5479, issued 16 February 1996.
 iii

CONTENTS
Page

Section one : General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1 Scope and field of application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

3 Definitions and symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

4 Acceptable Quality Level (AQL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

5 Switching rules for normal, tightened and reduced inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

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6 Relation to ISO 2859 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

7 Non-continuous production and operating characteristic curves . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Section two : Choice of sampling plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

8 Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

9 Choice between variables and attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

10 Choice of method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

11 Choice of inspection level and AQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

12 Choice of sampling plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Section three : Operation of a variables sampling plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

13 Preliminary operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

14 Standard procedure for “ s” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

15 Standard procedure for “σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

16 Procedure during continuing inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

17 Normality and outliers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

18 Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

19 Operation of switching rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

20 Discontinuation and resumption of inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

21 Acceptance curves for tightened and reduced inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

22 Switching to “σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

 iv

Page

Section four : Tables and diagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Tables

I-A Sample size code letters and inspection levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

I-B Sample size code letters and sample sizes for normal
inspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

II-A Single sampling plans for normal inspection (master table):

“s ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

II-B Single sampling plans for tightened inspection

(master table) : “s” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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II-C Single sampling plans for reduced inspection

(master table) : “s” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

III-A Single sampling plans for normal inspection (master table) :

“σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

III-B Single sampling plans for tightened inspection

(master table) : “σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

III-C Single sampling plans for reduced inspection

(master table) : “σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

IV-s Values of “fs ” for maximum sample standard

deviation (MSSD) : “s ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

IV-σ Values of “fσ ,” for maximum process standard

deviation (MPSD): “σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

V (V-B to V-P) Tables and operating characteristic curves for single

sampling plans (sample size code letters B to P) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27-40

VI-A Correspondence between tightened and normal

inspection plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

VI-B Correspondence between reduced and normal

inspection plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Diagrams

A Sample size code letters of standard sampling plans for

specified qualities at 95 % and 10 % probabilities of
acceptance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

s-D to s -P Acceptance curves for combined double specification limits :

“s ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43-54

σ-C to σ-P Acceptance curves for combined double specification limits :

“σ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55-67

Annexes

A Procedures for obtaining s and σ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

B Statistical theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

C Sampling plans for “R” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

D Graph paper for the “s ” method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
 1

AUSTRALIAN STANDARD

Sampling procedures and charts for inspection by

variables for percent nonconforming

Section one : General

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1 Scope and field of appl icat ion
1.1 Scope
1.1.1 This International Standard establishes sampling plans
and procedures for inspection by variables. It is comple-
mentary to ISO 2859. When specified by the responsible
authority, both this International Standard and ISO 2859 may
be referenced in a product or process specification, contract,
inspection instructions, or other documents, and the
provisions set forth therein shall govern. The “responsible
authority” shall be designated in one of the above
documents.
1.1.2 The object of the methods laid down in this Inter-
national Standard is to ensure that lots of an acceptable
quality have a high probability of acceptance and that the
probability of not accepting inferi or lots is as high as possible.
d) where a contract or standard defines an upper
specifi cation lim it U, a lower specification limit L, or
both; a product is qualifi ed as nonconforming when its
measured quality characterist ic x satisf ies one of the
following inequaliti es:
x>U ... (1)
x<L ... (2)
either x > U or x < L ... (3)
Inequalitie s (1) and (2) are called cases with a single speci-
fication limi t, and (3) a case with double specification
lim its. In this last situation a furt her distinction is made
between separate or combined double limit s according to
whether the AQL is applied to each lim it separately or to both
lim its combined (see clause 4).

1.1.3 In common with ISO 2859. the percentage of noncon-

forming products in the lots is used to define the quality of
2 References
these lots and of the production process in question.
ISO 2854, Statistical interpretati on of data — Techniques of
estimation and tests relating to means and variances.
1.2 Field of application
ISO 2859, Sampling procedures and tables for inspection by
This International Standard is primarily designed for use attributes.
under the following conditions :
ISO 3534, Statistics — Vocabulary and symbols .
a) where the inspection procedure is to be applied to a
1)
continuous series of lots of discrete products all supplied ISO 5479, Normality tests.
by one producer using one production process. If there are
different producers, this International Standard shall be ISO 5725, Precision of test methods — Determination of
applied to each one separately; repeatabillty and reproducibility for a standard test method by
inter-l aboratory tests.
b) where only a single quality characteristic x of these
products is taken into considerati on, which must be
measurable on a continuous scale. If several such 3 Definitions and symbols
characteristics are of importance. this International
Standard shall be applied to each separately; 3.1 Definitions
c) where production is stable (under statist ical control) and
For the purposes of this International Standard, the
the quality characteristic x is distrib uted according to a definit ions given in ISO 3534 and ISO 2859, together with the
normal distribution or a close approximation to the normal following, apply.
distrib ution;

1) At present at the stage of draft .

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AS 2490-1997, Sampling procedures and charts

for inspection by variables for percent
nonconforming
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