A process capability index for zero-inflated processes

Abstract

The proportion of zero defect (ZD) outputs is as an integral characteristic of a zero-inflated (ZI) process or high quality process. Different ZI processes can almost equally satisfy the same USL of number of defects but they can produce substantially different proportions of ZD products. The application of conventional method for process capability evaluation fails to discriminate these processes because in the conventional method, the process capability is evaluated taking into consideration the USL of number of defects only. In this paper, a new measure of process capability for ZI processes is proposed that can truly discriminate different ZI processes taking into account the USL of number of defects as well as the proportion of ZD units produced in these processes. In the proposed approach, at first a measure of process capability index (PCI) with respect to the USL is computed, and then the overall PCI is obtained by multiplying it with an appropriately defined multiplying factor. A real-life application is presented.