Comparing the cost of quality between C = 0 acceptance plans and MIL-STD-105E plans

Practitioners using acceptance sampling are under pressure to use C = 0 plans in place of the traditional MIL-STD-105E sampling plans. This paper investigates the effects of this practice, leading to a cost comparison of the two approaches. Previous research has looked at the effect on producer costs, but this paper identifies the costs to both the producer and the consumer, total costs. Six factors are identified, which affect total costs, and the results of each on total cost are shown. Circumstances when one plan might be better than the other are identified, leading to some prescriptive recommendations concerning when to use each.