A cost model for deferred state life test plans with replacement

This paper presents a cost model for the deferred state life test plan, which is one of the lot-by-lot acceptance sampling plans by attributes. In most sampling plans, the decision to accept or reject a submitted lot depends only on the sampling test results of the lot concerned; other information will not be considered. Deferred state life test plan is a sampling plan which uses information about subsequent lots for making decisions to accept or reject the current lot. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the total test cost of using the deferred state life test plan to see whether the use of this life test plan can reduce the total cost of the sampling test. In order to calculate the expected total test cost of the deferred state life test plan, a cost model is developed for the deferred state life test plan with replacement. Also, a cost comparison is made between a deferred state life test plan and a comparable military standard sampling plan which offers the same level of producer’s and consumer’s protection. The results show that the deferred state life test plan consistently reduces the overall cost of sampling tests over a variety of test conditions.