Economic design of X-bar control chart using simulated annealing

Abstract

Control charts are widely used in industry for monitoring and controlling manufacturing processes. They should be designed economically in order to achieve minimum quality control costs. The major function of control chart is to detect the occurrence of assignable causes so that the necessary corrective action can be taken before a large quantity of nonconforming product is manufactured. The X-bar control chart dominates the use of any other control chart technique if quality is measured on a continuous scale. In the present project, the economic design of the X-bar control chart using Simulated Annealing has been developed to determine the values of the sample size, sampling interval, width of control limits such that the expected total cost per hour is minimized. Simulated annealing is a solution method in the field of combinatorial optimization based on an analogy with the physical process of annealing. Solving a combinatorial optimization problem amounts to finding the best or optimal solution among a finite or countable infinite number of alternative solutions. A program has been developed using Matlab software to optimize the cost. The result was compared with the literature and found to be superior to the initial cost obtained.