Dynamically determined optimal inspection strategies for serial production processes

In general it is best to improve the quality of production processes to the point where inspection is minimal. It follows that incoming raw material usually should be of high quality. However, it can be disastrous if poor quality raw material is utilized by a production-inspection system optimized under the expectation of excellent raw material. Thus if there is uncertainty in the quality of incoming raw material, the production-inspection system should be dynamically adjusted to accommodate this variability. In this paper a sampling plan is described which serves as the basis for making dynamic adjustments to the production-inspection system. An upper bound is determined for the amount (given the potential gain) that should be spent on sampling the raw material.