Acceptance sampling is a quality control process used to determine if a sample of items meets certain standards, and whether to accept or reject the full lot. It helps balance the risks of accepting low quality products (consumer risk) versus rejecting high quality products (producer risk). Acceptance sampling can be applied at input, output, or process stages to monitor quality and make adjustments. A typical plan involves setting sample size, acceptance number, and deciding whether to accept or reject the full lot based on comparing defective items found to the acceptance number.