Acceptable Quality Level (AQL): Issues and Resolution

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Acceptable Quality Level (AQL): Issues and

Resolution
Acceptable Quality Level (AQL), which provides a sample size to determine if a lot should be accepted or
rejected, statistically does not protect customer. Sampling plans are typically determined from tables as a
function of an AQL criterion and other characteristics of the lot. Pass/fail decisions for an AQL-evaluated lot
are based only on the lots performance, not on previous product performance from the process. AQL
sampling plans do not give a picture of how a process is performing.
AQL sampling plans are inefficient and can be very costly, especially when high levels of quality are needed.
Often, organizations think that they will achieve better quality with AQL sampling plans than is possible. The
trend is that organizations are moving away from AQL sampling plans; however, many organizations are slow

Content of this article is from Chapter

21 of Integrated Enterprise Excellence
Volume III - Improvement Project
Execution: A Management and Black Belt
Guide for Going Beyond Lean Six Sigma
and the Balanced Scorecard, Forrest W.
Breyfogle III, Bridgeway Books/Citius
Publishing, Austin, TX, 2008.
Above link describes book content and
provides a discount book purchase price.

to make the transition. The following describes the concepts and shortcomings of AQL sampling plans.1
When setting up an AQL sampling plan, much care needs to be exercised in choosing samples. Samples must
be a random sample from the lot. This can be difficult to accomplish. Neither sampling nor 100% inspection
guarantees that every defect will be found. Studies have shown that 100% inspection is at most 80% effective.
There are two kinds of sampling risks:
Good lots can be rejected.

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Bad lots can be accepted.

The operating characteristic (OC) curve for sampling plans quantifies these risks. Figure 1 shows an ideal
operating curve.

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Firgure 1: Ideal OC Curve

Because an ideal OC curve is not possible, OC curves are described using the following terms:
Acceptable Quality Level (AQL)
AQL is typically considered to be the worst quality level that is still considered satisfactory. It is the
maximum percent defective that for purposes of sampling inspection can be considered satisfactory as
a process average.
The probability of accepting an AQL lot should be high. A probability of 0.95 translates to a a risk of
0.05.

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Rejectable Quality Level (RQL)

This is considered to be unsatisfactory quality level.
This is sometimes called lot tolerance percent defective (LTPD).

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This consumers risk has been standardized in some tables as 0.1.

The probability of accepting an RQL lot should be low.
Indifference Quality Level (IQL)
Quality level is somewhere between AQL and RQL.
This is frequently defined as quality level having probability of acceptance of 0.5 for a sampling plan.
An OC curve describes the probability of acceptance for various values of incoming quality. Pa is the
probability that the number of defectives in the sample is equal to or less than the acceptance number for
the sampling plan. The hyper-geometric, binomial, and Poisson distributions describe the probability of
acceptance for various situations.
The Poisson distribution is the easiest to use when calculating probabilities. The Poisson distribution can
often be used as an approximation for the other distributions. The probability of exactly x defects [P(x)] in n
samples is

For a allowed failures, P(xa ) is the sum of P(x) for x = 0 to x = a.

Figure 2 shows an AQL operating characteristic curve for an AQL level of 0.9%. Someone who is not familiar
with the operating characteristic curves of AQL would probably think that passage of this AQL 0.9% test would
indicate goodness. Well this is not exactly true because from this operating curve (OC) it can be seen that the
failure rate would have to be actually about 2.5% to have a 50%/50% chance of rejection.

Firgure 2: An operating characteristic curve. N=150, c=3.

AQL sampling often leads to activities that are associated with attempts to test quality into a product. AQL
sampling can reject lots that are a result of common-cause process variability. When a process output is
examined as AQL lots and a lot is rejected because of common-cause variability, customer quality does not
improve.

Example that highlights challenges with AQL testing

For N (lot size) = 75 and AQL = 4.0%, ANSI/ASQC Z1.4-1993 (Cancelled MIL-STD-105) yields, for a general
inspection level II, a test plan in which
Sample size = 13
Acceptance number = 1
Rejection number = 2
From this plan we can see how AQL sampling protects the producer. The failure rate at the acceptance
number is 7.6% [i.e., (1/13)(100) = 7.6%], while the failure rate at the rejection number is 15.4% [i.e.,
(2/13)(100) = 15.4%].
Usually a sample size is considered small relative to the population size if the sample is less than ten percent
of the population size. In this case, the population size is 75 and the sample size is 13; i.e., 13 is greater
than 10% of the population size. However, for the sake of illustration, lets determine the confidence
interval for the failure rate for the above two scenarios as though the sample size relative to population size
were small. This calculation yielded:
Test and Confidence Interval for One Proportion
Test of p = 0.04 vs p < 0.04
Sample

Sample p

95% Upper
Bound

Exact
P-Value

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13

0.076923

0.316340

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0.907

Test and Confidence Interval for One Proportion

Test of p = 0.04 vs p < 0.04
Sample
1

X
2

N
13

Sample p
0.153846

95% Upper
Bound
0.410099

Exact
P-Value
0.986

For this AQL test of 4%, the 95% confidence bound for one failure is 31.6% and for two failures is 41.0%.
Practitioners often dont realize how these AQL assessments do not protect the customer as much as they
might think.
This example illustrates how a tests uncertainty can be very large when determining if a lot is satisfactory
or not. A lot sample size to adequately test the low failure rate criteria in todays products is often
unrealistic and cost prohibitive. To make matters worse, these large sample sizes would be needed for each
test lot.

Does AQL testing answer the wrong (not best) question?

With AQL testing, sampling provides a decision-making process as to whether a lot is satisfactory or not
relative to a specification; however, this is often a very difficult, if not impossible, task to accomplish.
When one is confronted with the desire to answer a question that is not realistically achievable, we should
first step back to determine whether we are attempting to answer the wrong (or at least not the best)
question. Sometimes we might be wasting much resource attempting to answer the wrong question with
much accuracy; e.g., to the third decimal place.
When we are examining an AQL sample lot of parts, population statements are being made about each lot.
However, in most situations, a lot could be considered a time series sample of parts produced from the
process. With this type of thinking, our sampling can lead to a statement about the process that produces the
lots of parts. With this approach, our sample size is effectively larger since we would be including data in our
decision-making process from previous sampled lots.
Scoping the situation using this frame of reference has another advantage. If a process non-conformance rate
is unsatisfactory, the statement is made about the process, not about an individual lot. The customer can
then state to its supplier that the process needs to be improved, which can lead to specific actions that
result in improved future product quality. This does not typically occur with AQL testing since focus in lot
sampling is given to what it would take to get the current lot to pass the test. For this situation, it might
end up being, without the customer knowing it, a resample of the same lot. This second sample of the same
lot could pass because of the test uncertainty, as described earlier.
When determining an approach for assessing incoming part quality, the analyst needs to address the question
of process stability. If a process is not stable, the test methods and confidence statements cannot be
interpreted with much precision. Process control charting techniques can be used to determine the stability
of a process.
Consider also what actions will be taken when a failure occurs in a particular attribute-sampling plan. Will
the failure be "talked away"? Often, no knowledge is obtained about the "good" parts. Are these "good parts"
close to "failure"? What direction can be given to fixing the source of failure so that failure will not occur in a
customer environment? One should not play games with numbers! Only tests that give useful information for
continually improving the manufacturing process should be considered.
Fortunately, however, many problems that are initially defined as attribute tests can be redefined to
continuous response output tests. For example, a tester may reject an electronic panel if the electrical
resistance of any circuit is below a certain resistance value. In this example, more benefit could be derived
from the test if actual resistance values are evaluated. With this information, percent of population
projections for failure at the resistance threshold could then be made using probability plotting techniques.
After an acceptable level of resistance is established in the process, resistance could then be monitored using
control chart techniques for variables. These charts then indicate when the resistance mean and standard
deviation are decreasing or increasing with time, an expected indicator of an increase in the percentage
builds that are beyond the threshold requirement.
Additionally, Design of Experiments (DOE) techniques could be used as a guide to manufacture test samples
that represent the limits of the process. This test could perhaps yield parts that are more representative of
future builds and future process variability. These samples will not be "random" from the process, but this
technique can potentially identify future process problems that a random sample from an initial "batch" lot
would miss.
With the typical low failure rates of today, AQL sampling is not an effective approach to identify lot defect
problems.

Alternative Methodology to AQL Testing

In lieu of using AQL sampling plans to periodically inspect the output of a process, more useful information
can be obtained by using 30,000-foot-level Reports with Predictive Measurements to address process
common-cause and special-cause conditions. Process capability/performance studies can then be used to
quantify the process common-cause variability. If a process is not capable, something needs to be done
differently to the process to make it more capable.

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30,000-foot-level Charting Applications

The described 30,000-foot-level charting technique has many applications, as described in 30,000-foot-level
Performance Reporting Applications.

References
1. Forrest W. Breyfogle III, Integrated Enterprise Excellence Volume III - Improvement Project Execution:
A Management and Black Belt Guide for Going Beyond Lean Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard,
Bridgeway Books/Citius Publishing, 2008

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