Constrained economic design of S control charts for random process shifts

Purpose – The use of control charts to monitor a product quality characteristic requires the selection of their design parameters. To select feasible design parameters, the constraints related to the inspection resources available at the workstation, its configuration and the process operating parameters should be taken into account. The aim of this research is to discuss the design of Shewhart and EWMA control charts monitoring dispersion in the presence of these constraints and for processes characterized by a random shift size. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper the design of the investigated control charts has been intended in a broader sense as the design of a local inspection procedure constrained by a set of resource/environmental process factors characterizing the workstation configuration. An economic objective pursuing the minimization of the total inspection cost has been considered. Findings – Constraining the design of a control chart is an essential issue to find chart design parameters that can be effectively implemented by quality practitioners. The influence of the process‐operating parameters has been modelled and some guidelines have been suggested through the use of contour plots. Originality/value – The economic design of control charts has been scarcely implemented by quality practitioners due to the difficulty of adapting them to the multifaceted complexity and constraints present within manufacturing environments. This paper tries to contribute to the existing literature by improving the available mathematical models through modelling the actual workstation configuration and resource allocation; furthermore, for random shift processes it investigates the performance of the Shewhart and EWMA control charts monitoring process dispersion.