Improvement to the acceptance control system of a manufacturer of color picture tubes

A major U.S.-based manufacturer of color picture tubes wanted to assess and improve its product-acceptance control system. The organization only would consider changes that retain the current inspection head count and require minimal capital investment. This project reviews the acceptance control fundamentals and underlines the importance of complementing sampling with statistical process control. It assesses the system under study and proposes some changes to improve it. These changes, among others, include the sizing of lots, the use of switching-severity rules and the application of fractional sampling. The project also presents the results of a survey of quality managers in the TV-set industry that addresses the acceptance sampling practices in their organizations. The author expects that this paper will lead to the generation of further improvements in the organization under study, especially in areas such as acceptance sampling by variables and statistical-process control.