Economic off-line quality control strategy with two types of inspection errors

A commonly used quality control method is to inspect products to identify their quality and to perform the related disposition of acceptance, salvage or rejection based on the findings. While the issue of finding the most economical inspection/disposition policy has been studied for a batch of units produced from an unreliable system, previous studies assumed the inspections to be perfect. In this study, we further extend the inspection/disposition model to consider two types of inspection errors in order to facilitate the adaptation of this economic inspection/disposition model to real world applications. We first describe an inspection/disposition policy for the two types of inspection errors and then obtain the related mathematical formulae. An algorithm is presented for determining the optimal inspection/disposition policy. Finally, numerical examples are given to illustrate the effect of inspection errors on the optimal inspection/disposition policy under the following three quality control policies: cost minimizing, zero-defects and perfect information policy.     

Capacity planning under different inspection strategies

This paper addresses the issue of location of inspection stations along a serial production line. As a function of inspection site, the capacity required to test and repair the parts would vary. The production-inspection model developed provides management with information on such capacity planning issues. It integrates the issues of inspection location, inspection capacity, and production capacity. We consider a two-stage production line and evaluate cases when there are inspection sites after each production stage and when inspection is carried out after the final stage. In the latter case, we find the conditions when the safety stock required to meet the demand is higher. This has managerial implications because the inventory level is not only higher, it is held after the final stage, i.e. has more value added onto it. However, if there are inspection stations after each stage, the capacity required to test and repair the parts is higher. The intent of this work is to provide insights into designing production-inventory systems for the serial model that we consider. We also discuss the generalization of the scope of the two-stage model to an N stage production line. In an extension to the problem, we consider the situation when not all the defectives can be repaired. We extend the basic model by considering the effect of partial scraping of the defectives.     

Optimal Noncollapsing Space-Filling Designs for Irregular Experimental Regions

Space-filling and noncollapsing are two important properties in designing computer experiments. We study how the noncollapsing, space-filling designs for irregular experimental regions can be generated efficiently by the proposed metaheuristic methods. We solve this optimal design problem using variants of the discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) approaches. Numerical results, including an application in data center thermal management, are used to illustrate the performances of the proposed algorithms. Based on these numerical results, we assert that the most efficient approach is to reformulate the target optimal design problem as a constrained optimization problem and then use a modified DPSO to solve the constrained optimization problem.     

Symmetric AC fuzzy power flow model

Power flow calculations are one of the most important computational tools for planning and operating electric power systems. After the stabilization of the deterministic power flow calculation methods, the need to capture uncertainty in load definition lead first to the development of probabilistic models, and later to fuzzy approaches able to deal with qualitative declarations and other non-probabilistic information about the value of the loads. Present fuzzy power flow (FPF) calculations use typically incremental techniques, in order to obtain a good approximation of the fuzzy state variables. However, these models and procedures are not entirely satisfactory for the evaluation of the adequacy of the electric transmission system, since they are not completely symmetric. In this paper, we show how to perform the detailed calculation of the state variables of the FPF problem in an exact and symmetrical way, by means of solving multiple optimization problems. The procedure is illustrated using the IEEE 118 test system.     

两种不同系统因素影响下完全检验的最优设计

本文研究了两种不同系统因素影响下完全检验的质量最优问题 ,采用有两种不同控制界限的控制图来控制生产过程 ,并根据完全检验的特点 ,提出了一种新的最优模型。 Hui(1 991 )提出的最优模型是本文的最优模型的特殊情况 ,并且本文建立的最优模型还可推广到两种以上不同的系统因素下影响的情况     

L2-stabilization design for fuzzy control systems

System's stability is the most important requirement in control system designs. Fuzzy control system (FCS) should satisfy this requirement also. This paper shows that a linear plant with the formulated Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) is a nonlinear system and its stability can be analyzed by applying the Small Gain Theorem or the Circle Criterion. By these two criteria, three FLC design procedures are introduced to guarantee the stabilization of the FCS. Finally, two examples are given to confirm the availability of the proposed design approaches.     

Joint determination of production quantity,inspection schedule,and quality control for an imperfect process with deteriorating products

In this paper, we study the simultaneous effects of both deteriorating product items and deteriorating production processes on economic production quantity, inspection schedules, and the economic design of control charts. Deterioration times for both product and process are assumed to follow arbitrary probability distributions. The product quality characteristic, however, is assumed to be normally distributed. Applications of the proposed model are demonstrated through illustrative examples.     

Joint optimization of process target mean and tolerance limits with measurement errors under multi-decision alternatives

Determining the optimal target mean for a process has been identified as an important research area and a number of models have been proposed in the literature. This paper differs from previous studies of this problem in two ways. First, most previous studies address the process target problem through models seeking the optimal process mean using fixed tolerance settings of a process. Second, in real-world industrial settings, there are several markets often available with different price/cost structures. In this paper, we develop a model for jointly determining both the optimal process target mean and the optimal tolerance limits under the situation where there are several markets available with different price/cost structures. We then investigate the effects of measurement errors on the optimum process target and tolerance limits with multi-decision alternatives. A numerical example is given, and sensitivity analyses are also performed to study the effects of measurement errors on this model.     

A note on “Production lot sizing with quality screening and rework”

Recently, Moussawi-Haidar et al. (2016) considered a production process with random supply and an inspection process performed during and at the end of production. Two economic production quantity models with defective items were developed, in which Model 1 assumes that defective items are sold at a discounted price at the end of inspection process, and Model 2 assumes that defective items are reworked at a cost at the end of inspection process. In the paper, there are some mathematical expressions which are to be corrected. We first present the mathematical expressions corrected and establish the necessary conditions for which there is an optimal solution. We next provide the correct solutions to the numerical example.     

A single-shot game of multi-period inspection

This paper deals with an inspection game of Customs and a smuggler during some days. Customs has two options of patrolling or not. The smuggler can take two strategies of shipping its cargo of contraband or not. Two players have several opportunities to take an action during a limited number of days but they may discard some of the opportunities. When the smuggling coincides with the patrol, there occurs one of three events: the capture of the smuggler by Customs, a success of the smuggling and nothing new. If the smuggler is captured or no time remains to complete the game, the game ends. There have been many studies on the inspection game so far by the multi-stage game model, where both players at a stage know players’ strategies taken at the previous stage. In this paper, we consider a two-person zero-sum single-shot game, where the game proceeds through multiple periods but both players do not know any strategies taken by their opponents on the process of the game. We apply dynamic programming to the game to exhaust all equilibrium points on a strategy space of player. We also clarify the characteristics of optimal strategies of players by some numerical examples.     

AT&T准则下完全检验的最优设计

本文研究了完全检验的质量控制问题,将广泛用于X-控制图的AT&T准则应用于完全检验,并根据完全检验的特点,提出一种新的最优模型,数值实验结果表明AT&T准则下的完全检验优于传统的完全检验.     

Economic design of screening procedures when the rejected items are reprocessed

In a screening inspection, all of the items are subject to acceptance inspection. If an item fails to meet the predetermined specifications, it is rejected. In this paper, economic screening procedures are considered when the rejected items are reprocessed. It is assumed that the reprocessed and nonreprocessed items are produced by the same manufacturing process and therefore their quality characteristics are identically and independently distributed. Screening procedures based on the performance variable of interest and a variable which is correlated with the performance variable are considered. Cost models are constructed which involve the cost incurred by imperfect quality, reprocessing cost, and inspection cost. Methods of finding the optimal screening procedures are presented and an example is given.     

A model for supply chain design considering the cost of quality

Recent studies have shown that the cost of quality (COQ) is of more strategic and economic importance than previously conceived. Whereas previous works have applied COQ as an internal performance measure within companies, the purpose of this paper is to present a model for supply chain design that computes the COQ as a global performance measure for the entire supply chain. In addition, rather than assume an exogenously given COQ curve, our model computes COQ in terms of internal operational decisions such as the error rate at inspection and fraction defective at manufacturing. The model can be used to design a logistic route that achieves a minimum total cost while maintaining an overall quality level and to evaluate the impact of investment in quality to increase overall profits. The behaviour of the model is illustrated with numerical examples that show how the COQ function changes depending on various parameters.     

AT&T准则下完全检验的最优设计(英文)

本文研究了完全检验的质量控制问题,将广泛用于X-控制图的AT＆amp;T准则应用于完全检验,并根据完全检验的特点,提出一种新的最优模型,数值实验结果表明AT＆amp;T准则下的完全检验优于传统的完全检验。     

Coordinated production and inspection in a tandem system

We study the coordination of production and quality control in a tandem-queue system. There are two stages, with a single server at stage one that can engage in processing an item, or inspecting the produced item, or staying idle; whereas the second stage represents the aggregate of the rest of the production facility. We focus on the optimal control of the first stage, where both the production and inspection times follow general distributions. We formulate a semi-Markov decision program with a long-run average objective, and derive the stationary optimal policy to control and coordinate the production, inspection, and idling processes. We show that there exists a threshold valuei ^–, such that under the optimal policy, once the threshold is reached, production should be suspended at the first stage; and this leads naturally toi ^–+1 being the required buffer capacity between the two stages.Supported in part by NSF Grant MDI-9523029.Supported in part by HKUST Grant DAG95/96.BM52.     

A monitoring scheme for maintaining the solution to OR-problems

An important problem with the use of OR-solutions for repetitive decision making is how to control the quality of the solution, if the problem to be solved may change with time. Current methods are generally lacking procedures for diagnosing the causes of changes in the quality. In this paper we use concepts borrowed from general control theory to derive a scheme for monitoring the solution. This relates changes in the performance to changes in the quality of the model used, of the decision routine used, of the information used, and in the usage of the solution. It is shown that the existence of a model of the process to be controlled (a design process model), is crucial for designing adequate monitoring procedures. An example of the application of the monitoring scheme to a production control problem in practice is presented and the experience obtained from its use are discussed.     

A new system of skip‐lot sampling plans having a provision for reducing normal inspection

The skip‐lot sampling program can be used for reducing the amount of inspection on a product that has excellent quality history. Thus skip‐lot sampling plans are designed to reduce inspection costs. Moreover, the skip‐lot concept is sound and useful and is economically advantageous to use in the design of sampling plans. Hence, a new system of skip‐lot sampling plans designated as the SkSP‐V plan is developed in this paper. The proposed plan requires a return to normal inspection whenever a lot is rejected during sampling inspection, but has a provision for a reduced normal inspection upon demonstration of superior product quality. A Markov chain formulation and derivation of performance measures for this new plan are presented. The properties of SkSP‐V plan are studied with single sampling plan as the reference plan. Advantages of this new plan are also discussed. Finally, certain cost models are given for the economic design of the SkSP‐V plan. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Metaheuristic procedures for the lexicographic bottleneck assembly line balancing problem

The goal of this work is to develop an improved procedure for the solution of the lexicographic bottleneck variant of the assembly line balancing problem (LB-ALBP). The objective of the LB-ALBP is to minimize the workload of the most heavily loaded workstation, followed by the workload of the second most heavily loaded workstation and so on. This problem—recently introduced to the literature (Pastor, 2011)—has practical relevance to manufacturing facilities. We design, implement and fine-tune GRASP, tabu search (TS) and scatter search (SS) heuristics for the LB-ALBP and show that our procedures are able to obtain solutions of a quality that outperforms previous approaches. We rely on both semi-greedy and memory-based designs that our experiments show to be effective. Experimental results verify the advantages of embedding such designs to improve the solution existing in the literature of this complex problem. Additionally, the extensive experimentation with 48 variants of GRASP, 12 of TS and 1 of SS establishes the benefits of adding enhanced search strategies to basic procedures.     

The confounding effects of distribution mixtures on some basic methods for handling stable-Paretian distributions

The belief that the distributions of many business and economic variables are stable-Paretian (SP) generated a large literature on SP financial modelling. In contrast, some recent studies appear to have shown that the major financial variables thought to be SP are not SP. However, practically all these earlier studies assume that the variable under consideration has a single or ‘pure’ SP distribution, whereas many business /economic variables come from distribution mixtures. This paper investigates the applicability of some basic SP methods to mixtures of SP distributions. Our results show that current SP parameter-estimation procedures and SP-hypothesis tests are all very unreliable for SP mixtures. Our results imply that: (i) earlier findings on testing the SP hypothesis for various business /economic variables are unreliable, and whether major financial variables are SP remains an important unanswered question; (ii) new methods need to be developed to handle SP mixtures.     

An adaptive robust controller for time delay maglev transportation systems

For engineering systems, uncertainties and time delays are two important issues that must be considered in control design. Uncertainties are often encountered in various dynamical systems due to modeling errors, measurement noises, linearization and approximations. Time delays have always been among the most difficult problems encountered in process control. In practical applications of feedback control, time delay arises frequently and can severely degrade closed-loop system performance and in some cases, drives the system to instability. Therefore, stability analysis and controller synthesis for uncertain nonlinear time-delay systems are important both in theory and in practice and many analytical techniques have been developed using delay-dependent Lyapunov function. In the past decade the magnetic and levitation (maglev) transportation system as a new system with high functionality has been the focus of numerous studies. However, maglev transportation systems are highly nonlinear and thus designing controller for those are challenging. The main topic of this paper is to design an adaptive robust controller for maglev transportation systems with time-delay, parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. In this paper, an adaptive robust control (ARC) is designed for this purpose. It should be noted that the adaptive gain is derived from Lyapunov–Krasovskii synthesis method, therefore asymptotic stability is guaranteed.