Variable sampling plans for normal distribution indexed by Taguchi's loss function

Taguchi has presented an approach to quality improvement in which reduction of deviation from the target value is the guiding principle. In this approach any measured value x of a product characteristic X brings a loss to consumer in general, where the loss is expressed as a quadratic form with respect to the difference between the measured value x and the target value T of a product characteristic. Then, it is natural to reject the lot which may bring a large loss to consumer. This concept induces us to construct new variable sampling plans based on the Taguchi's loss criterion. In this article, a design procedure of the sampling plans for assuring the loss in the Taguchi's method is proposed. Some numerical results based on the proposed design procedures are illustrated. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Naval Research Logistics 44: 591–603 (1997)