Chapter Five

Control Charts for Attribute Data

Daniel Ab.
Bahir Dar Institute of Technology (BiT)
Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
2.1 Introduction

What is Attribute?
Many quality characteristics cannot be conveniently represented
numerically. In such cases, we usually classify each item inspected as
either conforming or nonconforming to the specifications on that quality
characteristic.

The terminology defective or nondefective is often used to identify these

two classifications of product. More recently, the terminology
conforming and nonconforming has become popular. Quality
characteristics of this type are called attributes.

Attribute are used:

• Where measurements are not possible.
• Where measurements can be made but are not made because of
time, cost, or need.
Attributes charts are generally not as informative as variables charts
because there is typically more information in a numerical
measurement than in merely classifying a unit as conforming or
nonconforming.

However, attribute charts do have important applications. They are

particularly useful in service industries and in nonmanufacturing
quality-improvement efforts because so many of the quality
characteristics found in these environments are not easily measured on
a numerical scale.

Some examples of quality characteristics that are attributes are:

 The proportion of warped automobile engine connecting rods in a
day’s production,
 The number of nonfunctional semiconductor chips on a wafer,
 The number of errors or mistakes made in completing a loan
application,
 The number of medical errors made in a hospital etc.
Nonconformity Vs. Defect
A nonconformity is a departure of a quality characteristic from its
intended level or state that occurs with a severity sufficient to cause
an associated product or service not to meet a specification
requirement. Nonconformity is appropriate for conformance to
specifications.

Defect is concerned with satisfying intended normal, or reasonably

foreseeable, usage requirement. Defect is appropriate for use when
evaluation is in terms of usage.

The term Nonconforming Unit is used to describe a unit of product or

service containing at least one nonconformity.

Defective is analogous to defect and is appropriate for use when unit

of
4 product or service is evaluated in terms of usage rather than

conformance to specifications.
 Nonconformity Classification

[Link] nonconformities: Unsafe conditions for

individuals using, maintaining, or depending upon the
product.
[Link] nonconformities: Result in failure or reduce
materially the usability of the product for its intended
purpose.
[Link] nonconformities: Reduce materially the usability of
the product for its intended purpose.
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Types of Attribute Charts

1. Nonconforming units (Defectives): p chart, np chart.

2. Nonconformities (Defects): c chart, u chart.

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Subgroup size for Attribute Data is often 50–200.
 The P Chart (For Fraction Nonconforming)

 The P Chart is used for data that consist of the proportion of the number
of occurrences of an event to the total number of occurrences.
 It is used in quality to report the fraction or percent nonconforming in a
product, quality characteristic, or group of quality characteristics.
 The fraction nonconforming is defined as ‘the ratio of the number of
nonconforming items in a population to the total number of items in that
population’.
 The items may have several quality characteristics that are examined
simultaneously by the inspector. If the item does not conform to
standard on one or more of these characteristics, it is classified as
nonconforming.
 Because the fraction nonconforming is very small, the subgroup sizes
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must be quite large to produce a meaningful chart.
 The P Chart (For Fraction Nonconforming)

We usually express the fraction nonconforming as a decimal, although

occasionally the percent nonconforming (which is simply 100% times
the fraction nonconforming) is used.

If a random sample of n units of product is selected, and if D is the

number of units of product that are nonconforming, then the sample
fraction nonconforming is determined as:

The subgroup size of the P chart can be either variable or constant.

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 The P Chart (For Fraction Nonconforming)

It can be used to control one quality characteristic, as is done with

X-bar and R chart, or to control a group of quality characteristics
of the same type or of the same part, or to control the entire
product.

It can be established to measure the quality produced by a work

center, by a department, by a shift, or by an entire plant.

P Chart is frequently used to report the performance of an

operator, group of operators, or management as a means of
evaluating their quality performance.
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 Objectives of P Chart

• Determine the average quality level: This information provides the

process capability in terms of attributes.
• Bring to the attention of management any changes in the average.
• Improve the product quality: Ideas for quality improvement.
• Evaluate the quality performance of operating and management
personnel.
• Suggest places to use X-bar and R chart: They are more sensitive
to variation.
• Determine acceptance criteria of a product before shipment to the
customer.

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 Construction of the of P Chart
The general model for the Shewhart control chart is given by:

Where: L is the distance of the control limits from the center line, in multiples of
the standard deviation of w. It is customary to choose L = 3.

Fraction Nonconforming Control Chart: Standard Given

Suppose that the true fraction nonconforming p in the production process is known
or is a specified standard value. Thus:

Depending on the values of p and n, sometimes the lower control limit LCL < 0. In
these
1 cases, we customarily set LCL = 0 and assume that the control chart only has
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an upper control limit.
 Construction of the of P Chart

Fraction Nonconforming Control Chart: No Standard Given

When the process fraction nonconforming p is not known, then it must be estimated from
observed data. The usual procedure is to select m preliminary samples, each of size n.

As a general rule, m should be at least 20 or 25. Then if there are Di nonconforming units
in sample i, we compute the fraction nonconforming in the ith sample as:

and the average of these individual sample fractions nonconforming is:

The center line and control limits (Regarded as Trial Control Limits) of the control chart
for fraction nonconforming are computed as follows:
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Example 1:

Frozen orange juice concentrate is packed in 6-oz cardboard cans. These cans
are formed on a machine by spinning them from cardboard stock and attaching
a metal bottom panel. By inspection of a can, we may determine whether,
when filled, it could possibly leak either on the side seam or around the
bottom joint. Such a nonconforming can has an improper seal on either the
side seam or the bottom panel. Set up a control chart to improve the fraction of
nonconforming cans produced by this machine.

To establish the control chart, 30 samples of n = 50 cans each were selected at

half-hour intervals over a three-shift period in which the machine was in
continuous operation. The data are shown below.

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1
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We construct a phase I control chart using this preliminary data to determine if the process
was in control when these data were collected.

Thus,

Using p as an estimate of the true process fraction nonconforming, we can now calculate
the upper and lower control limits as:

Therefore,

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The control chart with center line at p  0.2313 and the above upper and lower control
limits is shown below. The sample fraction nonconforming from each preliminary sample
is plotted on this chart. We note that two points, those from samples 15 and 23, plot above
the upper control limit, so the process is not in control. These points must be investigated
to see whether an assignable cause can be determined.

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6 Fig: Initial phase I fraction nonconforming control chart
for the preliminary data
Eliminating samples 15 and 23 are eliminated, and the new center line and
revised control limits are calculated as:

The revised center line and control limits are shown on the control chart
below. Note that samples 15 and 23 are not dropped from the chart, but they
have been excluded from the control limit calculations.

This annotation of the control chart is to indicate unusual points, process

adjustments, or the type of investigation made at a particular point in time
forms a useful record for future process analysis and should become a
standard practice in control chart usage.
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 Fig: Revised control limits
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In general, the process is in control at the level p = 0.2150 and that the revised
control limits should be adopted for monitoring current production.

However, we note that although the process is in control, the fraction

nonconforming is much too high. That is, the process is operating in a stable
manner, and no unusual operator-controllable problems are present. It is unlikely
that the process quality can be improved by action at the workforce level.

The nonconforming cans produced are management controllable because an

intervention by management in the process will be required to improve
performance.

In addition, care must be exercised in interpreting points that plot below the
lower control limit. These points often do not represent a real improvement in
process quality. Frequently, they are caused by errors in the inspection process
resulting from inadequately trained or inexperienced inspectors or from
improperly calibrated test and inspection equipment.

Not all downward shifts in p chart are attributable to improved quality.

 The P Chart (For Variable Sample Size)

In some applications of the control chart for fraction nonconforming,

the sample is a 100% inspection of process output over some period
of time. Since different numbers of units could be produced in each
period, the control chart would then have a variable sample size.

There are three approaches to constructing and operating a control

chart with a variable sample size.
Variable-Width Control Limits
Control Limits Based on an Average Sample Size
The Standardized Control Chart

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 Variable-Width Control Limits

It is the most simple approach to determine control limits for each

individual sample that are based on the specific sample size. That is,
if the ith sample is of size ni then the upper and lower control limits
will be determined by:

Note that the width of the control limits is inversely proportional to

the square root of the sample size. As the subgroup size gets larger,
the control limits are closer together.

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Example 2:

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For the 25 samples, we calculate

Consequently, the center line is at 0.096, and the control limits are:

Fig: Control chart for fraction

nonconforming
with variable sample size

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 Control Limits Based on an Average Sample Size

This approach is to base the control chart on an average sample size,

resulting in an approximate set of control limits. This assumes that
future sample sizes will not differ greatly from those previously
observed.

If this approach is used, the control limits will be constant, and the
resulting control chart will not look as formidable to operating
personnel as the control chart with variable limits.

However, if there is an unusually large variation in the size of a

particular sample or if a point plots near the approximate control
limits,
2 then the exact control limits for that point should be
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determined and the point examined relative to that value.
For the previous example, we find that the average sample size is:

Therefore, the approximate control limits are:

Fig: Control chart for fraction

nonconforming based on
average sample size

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 The Standardized Control Chart

Here the points are plotted in standard deviation units. Such a control chart
has the center line at zero, and upper and lower control limits of +3 and
−3, respectively. The variable plotted on the chart is using z-score
(Standard score)
Where: p or ( p if no s tan dard is given)

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 Fig: Standardized Control chart for fraction nonconforming

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 The np Chart (For Number Nonconforming)

It is also possible to base a control chart on the number nonconforming

rather than the fraction nonconforming. This is often called an number
nonconforming (np) control chart. The parameters of this chart are as
follows.

If a standard value for p is unavailable, then p can be used to estimate p.

Many non-statistically trained personnel find the np chart easier to
interpret than the usual fraction nonconforming control chart.

The
2 limitation that this chart has is that the subgroup size needs to be
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constant.
 The np Chart (For Number Nonconforming)

Using the data given on example-1 above, we found that:

Total number of Defective items
np 
Total number of subgroups

Therefore, the parameters of the np control chart would be:

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 The np Chart (For Number Nonconforming)

In practice, the number of nonconforming units in each sample is plotted

on the np control chart, and the number of nonconforming units is an
integer.

Thus, if 20 units are nonconforming the process is in control, but if 21

occur the process is out of control. Similarly, there are three
nonconforming units in the sample and the process is in control, but two
nonconforming units would imply an out-of-control process.

Some practitioners, however, prefer to use integer values for control

limits on the np chart instead of their decimal fraction counterparts. In this
example we could choose 2 and 21 as the LCL and UCL, respectively,
and
3 the process would be considered out of control if a sample value of
np0 plotted at or beyond the control limits.
 Control Charts for Counts of Nonconformities (Defects)
The nonconformities chart controls the count of nonconformities
within the product or service. An item is classified as a
nonconforming unit whether it has one or many nonconformities (out
of specifications).
Types of charts:
 Count of nonconformities (c) chart: The total number of
nonconformities in an inspection unit
 Count of nonconformities per unit (u) chart: Average number of
nonconformities per unit
Since these charts are based on the Poisson distribution, two
conditions must be met:
1. The average count of nonconformities must be much less than the
3 total possible count of nonconformities.
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2. The occurrences are independent.
 Control Charts for Counts of Nonconformities (Defects)

Objectives:
• Determine the average quality level: This information gives the initial
process capability.
• Bring to the attention of management any changes in the average.
• Improve the product quality: Ideas for quality improvement.
• Evaluate the quality performance of operating and management personnel.
• Suggest places to use X-bar and R chart.
• Determine acceptance criteria of a product before shipment to the customer.

There are many practical situations in which we prefer to work directly with the
number of defects or nonconformities rather than the fraction nonconforming.
These include the number of defective welds in 100m of oil pipeline, the number
of broken rivets in an aircraft wing, the number of functional defects in an
electronic logic device, the number of errors on a document, and so forth.
 C Chart (For Counts of Nonconformities)
Consider the occurrence of nonconformities in an inspection unit of product. In
most cases, the inspection unit will be a single unit of product, although this is
not necessarily always so.

The inspection unit is simply an entity for which it is convenient to keep records.
It could be a group of 5 units of product, 10 units of product, and so on. The
inspection unit is chosen for operational or data-collection simplicity.

Suppose that defects or nonconformities occur in this inspection unit according

to the Poisson distribution, control chart for nonconformities, or c chart with
three sigma limits would be defined as:

Control Chart for Counts of Nonconformities: No Standard Given

Example 3:
Table below presents the number of nonconformities observed in 26
successive samples of 100 printed circuit boards. Note that, for reasons of
convenience, the inspection unit is defined as 100 boards. Set up a c chart for
these data.

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Since the 26 samples contain 516 total nonconformities, we estimate c by:

Therefore, the trial control limits are given by:

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 u Chart (For Counts of Nonconformities/Unit)
The second approach for counts of nonconformities involves setting up a
control chart based on the average number of nonconformities per inspection
unit.

If we find x total nonconformities in a sample of n inspection units, then the

average number of nonconformities per inspection unit is given by:

The parameters of the control chart for the average number of nonconformities
per unit are:

Subgroup size for the u chart can vary and the u chart is limited in that we do not
know the location of the nonconformities.
Example 4:
A supply chain engineering group monitors shipments of materials through the
company distribution network. Errors on either the delivered material or the
accompanying documentation are tracked on a weekly basis. Fifty randomly
selected shipments are examined and the errors recorded. Data for twenty weeks
are shown in Table below. Set up a u control chart to monitor this process.

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From the data, the number of errors (nonconformities) per unit (shipment) is:

Therefore, the parameters of the control chart are:

Since the LCL < 0, we would set LCL = 0 for the u chart.

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The control chart is shown below. The preliminary data do not exhibit lack of
statistical control; therefore, the trial control limits given here would be
adopted for phase II monitoring of future operations. Once again, note that,
although the process is in control, the average number of errors per shipment
is high. Action should be taken to improve the supply chain system

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The control chart for nonconformities per unit
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 Choosing the Proper Type of Control Chart.
A. X-bar and R(X-bar and S) Charts. Consider using variables control charts in these
situations:
1. A new process is coming on stream, or a new product is being manufactured by an
existing process.
2. The process has been in operation for some time, but it is chronically in trouble or
unable to hold the specified tolerances.
3. The process is in trouble, and the control chart can be useful for diagnostic purposes
(troubleshooting).
4. Destructive testing (or other expensive testing procedures) is required.
5. It is desirable to reduce acceptance-sampling or other downstream testing to a
minimum when the process can be operated in control.
6. Attributes control charts have been used, but the process is either out of control or in
control but the yield is unacceptable.
7. There are very tight specifications, overlapping assembly tolerances, or other
difficult manufacturing problems.
8. The operator must decide whether or not to adjust the process, or when a setup must
be evaluated.
9. A change in product specifications is desired.
10. Process stability and capability must be continually demonstrated, such as in
regulated industries.
 Choosing the Proper Type of Control Chart.
B. Attributes Charts ( p charts, c charts, and u charts). Consider using attributes control
charts in these situations:
1. Operators control the assignable causes, and it is necessary to reduce process
fallout.
2. The process is a complex assembly operation and product quality is measured in
terms of the occurrence of nonconformities, successful or unsuccessful product
function, and so forth. (Examples include computers, office automation
equipment, automobiles, and the major subsystems of these products.)
3. Process control is necessary, but measurement data cannot be obtained.
4. A historical summary of process performance is necessary. Attributes control
charts, such as p charts, c charts, and u charts, are very effective for summarizing
information about the process for management review.
5. Remember that attributes charts are generally inferior to charts for variables.
Always use X-bar and R or X-bar and s charts whenever possible.
 Choosing the Proper Type of Control Chart.
C. Control Charts for Individuals. Consider using the control chart for individuals in
conjunction with a moving-range chart in these situations:
1. It is inconvenient or impossible to obtain more than one measurement per sample,
or repeat measurements will only differ by laboratory or analysis error. Examples
often occur in chemical processes.
2. Automated testing and inspection technology allow measurement of every unit
produced. In these cases, also consider the cumulative sum control chart and the
exponentially weighted moving average control chart.
3. The data become available very slowly, and waiting for a larger sample will be
impractical or make the control procedure too slow to react to problems. This
often happens in non-product situations; for example, accounting data may
become available only monthly.
4. Generally, once we are in phase II, individuals charts have poor performance in
shift detection and can be very sensitive to departures from normality. Always use
the EWMA and CUSUM charts in phase II instead of individuals charts whenever
possible.