What is AQL?

Acceptance Quality Level

Acceptance Quality Level (AQL) is a quality control metric used in manufacturing and procurement. It defines the maximum percentage of defective items considered acceptable in a sample. AQL helps balance product quality with inspection costs by allowing a small predetermined number of defects.

AQL is crucial for maintaining consistent quality while optimizing resources in production and supply chain management.   

Some key aspects of AQL inlcude sampling-based inspection, statistical inspection, customizable inspectione.  

A 

Average Outgoing Quality (AOQ): refers to The maximum value of AOQ for all possible incoming quality levels. 

Average Outgoing Quality (AOQ): refers to The long-run average quality of outgoing product after inspection. 

Acceptable Quality Limit: Refers to the worst quality level that is still considered satisfactory. 


C 

Critical, Major, and Minor defects: Refers to the Categories of defects based on severity.

Consumer's Risk (Beta Risk): Refers to Probability of accepting a bad lot.


D 

Defect: Refers to a flaw or imperfection in a product that doesn't meet specifications.

Double Sampling Plan: refers to uses two samples if the first is inconclusive.


L 

Lot: Refers to the entire batch of products being evaluated. 


O 

Operating Characteristic (OC) Curve: Refers to the graph showing the probability of accepting lots at various quality levels.


P 

Producer's Risk (Alpha Risk): Probability of rejecting a good lot.


R 

Rejectable Quality Limit (RQL): The poorest quality level that should be rejected.


S 

Sample: The subset of items randomly selected from the lot for inspection. 

Single Sampling Plan: Refers to Inspection method using one sample to make a decision. 

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