Acceptance sampling is a quality control technique used when full testing of all items is too costly or impossible. It involves inspecting only a sample of items rather than every single one. If the sample meets certain criteria, the entire lot is accepted, while if it fails inspection, the whole lot is rejected. Acceptance sampling provides a compromise between doing no inspection at all versus fully inspecting every item. It can be applied to attributes or measurements of a product and is useful for evaluating incoming shipments from suppliers with unknown quality levels.

1. Acceptance Sampling
By
Nityanand Deva
Assistant Professor
International School of Management, Patna

2. Introduction to Acceptance Sampling
• Acceptance sampling is a major component of quality control and is
useful when the cost of testing is high compared to the cost of
passing a defective item or when testing is destructive.
• It is a compromise between doing 100% inspection and no
inspection at all.
• In particular, in cases when the quality of a supplier's process is
unknown, acceptance sampling may be a good option as opposed
to 100% inspection.
• Acceptance sampling can be done on attributes or measurements
of the product.
• You can use acceptance sampling to develop inspection plans that
enable you to accept or reject a particular lot of incoming material
based on the data from a representative sample.