A comparison study of control charts for Weibull distributed time between events

Monitoring decreases in the mean of Weibull time between events data to address process quality deteriorations is an important task in reliability analysis. Two new control charts such as Weibull exponentially weighted moving average and mixed cumulative sum‐exponentially weighted moving average by transforming the Weibull data to the exponential data are proposed and compared with 2 existing control charts such as Weibull cumulative sum and mixed exponentially weighted moving average‐cumulative sum. The performance comparison provides a way to select a specific control chart in a given situation. The average run length and the standard deviation of the run length are used as performance measures. The relative mean index is also utilized to measure the overall performance. The smaller the value of the relative mean index, the better the performance of the control chart and vice versa. Two illustrative examples are provided to show the applications of the proposed control charts.     

Improving the Product Reliability in Multistage Manufacturing and Service Operations

Monitoring and improving the product reliability is of main concern in a large number of multistage manufacturing processes. The process output is commonly inspected under limited load conditions, and the tensile strength of reliability‐related quality characteristic is measured. This brings about censored observations that make the direct application of traditional control charts futile. The monitoring procedure becomes aggravated when the influence of variable competing risk is pronounced during the conducted test. To deal with this critical issue, we propose a regression‐adjusted cumulative sum (CUSUM) chart to effectively monitor a quality characteristic that may be right censored because of both fixed and variable competing risks. Moreover, two exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts on the basis of conditional expected values are devised to detect decreases in the tensile mean. The comparison of the three competing monitoring schemes confirms the superiority of the regression‐adjusted CUSUM procedure. Not only is the proposed control chart applicable to manufacturing processes with the aim of monitoring reliability‐related quality variables, it is also appropriate for monitoring similar quality measurements in service operations such as survivability measures in healthcare services. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New control charts for monitoring the Weibull percentiles under complete data and Type‐II censoring

In this paper, we propose 3 new control charts for monitoring the lower Weibull percentiles under complete data and Type‐II censoring. In transforming the Weibull distribution to the smallest extreme value distribution, Pascaul et al (2017) presented an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart, hereafter referred to as EWMA‐SEV‐Q, based on a pivotal quantity conditioned on ancillary statistics. We extended their concept to construct a cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart denoted by CUSUM‐SEV‐Q. We provide more insights of the statistical properties of the monitoring statistic. Additionally, in transforming a Weibull distribution to a standard normal distribution, we propose EWMA and CUSUM control charts, denoted as EWMA‐YP and CUSUM‐YP, respectively, based on a pivotal quantity for monitoring the Weibull percentiles with complete data. With complete data, the EWMA‐YP and CUSUM‐YP control charts perform better than the EWMA‐SEV‐Q and CUSUM‐SEV‐Q control charts in terms of average run length. In Type‐II censoring, the EWMA‐SEV‐Q chart is slightly better than the CUSUM‐SEV‐Q chart in terms of average run length. Two numerical examples are used to illustrate the applications of the proposed control charts.     

Monitoring therapeutic processes using risk-adjusted multivariate Tukey's CUSUM control chart

Using control charts for monitoring therapeutic processes has become popular lately. As the application of traditional control charts in the therapeutic processes may be misleading due to the inherent differences between patients, a multifactor correlated risk measure is considered in monitoring of these processes. Therefore, using risk-adjusted control charts for monitoring the therapeutic processes is of interest to practitioners. Furthermore, in health care monitoring, statistical models should account for abnormal distributions and outlier data to minimize misinterpretations of monitoring schemes. This study proposes a risk-adjusted multivariate Tukey's cumulative sum (RA-MTCUSUM) control chart. The proposed method is a combination of the accelerated failure time (AFT) regression model, the Tukey's control chart (TCC) featuring robustness against abnormality, and the multivariate cumulative sum (MCUSUM) control chart for monitoring multivariable process. Simulation experiments are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed control chart using the average run length (ARL) measure. Results show that the RA-MTCUSUM control chart has better performance in comparison with traditional ones for monitoring various distributions (normal and non-normal). Based on the simulation results, outlier data do not disturb the proposed control chart's performance. Moreover, applying the RA-MTCUSUM control chart to a real-world dataset related to sepsis patients of a hospital located in Tehran, Iran indicates that the control chart has more reasonable performance than the traditional control charts in the real applications due to its robustness.     

Cumulative Sum Control Charts for Monitoring Weibull‐distributed Time Between Events

The Weibull distribution can be used to effectively model many different failure mechanisms due to its inherent flexibility through the appropriate selection of a shape and a scale parameter. In this paper, we evaluate and compare the performance of three cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts to monitor Weibull‐distributed time‐between‐event observations. The first two methods are the Weibull CUSUM chart and the exponential CUSUM (ECUSUM) chart. The latter is considered in literature to be robust to the assumption of the exponential distribution when observations have a Weibull distribution. For the third CUSUM chart included in this study, an adjustment in the design of the ECUSUM chart is used to account for the true underlying time‐between‐event distribution. This adjustment allows for the adjusted ECUSUM chart to be directly comparable to the Weibull CUSUM chart. By comparing the zero‐state average run length and average time to signal performance of the three charts, the ECUSUM chart is shown to be much less robust to departures from the exponential distribution than was previously claimed in the literature. We demonstrate the advantages of using one of the other two charts, which show surprisingly similar performance. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Controlling autocorrelated data in multistage manufacturing processes with an application to textile industry

In recent years, much attention has been given to monitoring multistage processes in order to effectively improve the product reliability. To this end, the output of the process is investigated under special circumstances, and the values corresponding to reliability‐related quality characteristic are measured. However, analyzing reliability data is quite complicated because of their unique features such as being censored and obeying nonnormal distributions. A more sophisticated picture arises when the observations of the process are autocorrelated in some cases, which makes the application of previous control procedures futile. In this paper, the accelerated failure time (AFT) regression models have been modified in order to account for autocorrelated data. Then, a cumulative sum (CUSUM) control chart and an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart based on conditional expected values have been proposed to monitor the quality variable with Weibull distribution while taking the effective covariates into consideration. Extensive simulation studies reveal that the CUSUM control chart outperforms its counterpart in detecting out‐of‐control conditions. Finally, a real case study in a textile industry has been provided to investigate the application of the CUSUM control scheme.     

CS‐EWMA Chart for Monitoring Process Dispersion

Control charts are the most extensively used technique to detect the presence of special cause variations in processes. They can be classified into memory and memoryless control charts. Cumulative sum and exponentially weighted moving average control charts are memory‐type control charts as their control structures are developed in such a way that the past information is not ignored as it is done in the case of memoryless control charts, like the Shewhart‐type control charts. The present study is based on the proposal of a new memory‐type control chart for process dispersion. This chart is named as CS‐EWMA chart as its plotting statistic is based on a cumulative sum of the exponentially weighted moving averages. Comparisons with other memory charts used to monitor the process dispersion are done by means of the average run length. An illustration of the proposed technique is done by applying the CS‐EWMA chart on a simulated dataset. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Weighted adaptive multivariate CUSUM control charts

An adaptive multivariate cumulative sum (AMCUSUM) control chart has received considerable attention because of its ability to dynamically adjust the reference parameter whereby achieving a better performance over a range of mean shifts than the conventional multivariate cumulative sum (CUSUM) charts. In this paper, we introduce a progressive mean–based estimator of the process mean shift and then use it to devise new weighted AMCUSUM control charts for efficiently monitoring the process mean. These control charts are easy to design and implement in a computerized environment compared with their existing counterparts. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the run‐length characteristics of the proposed control charts. The run‐length comparison results show that the weighted AMCUSUM charts perform substantially and uniformly better than the classical multivariate CUSUM and AMCUSUM charts in detecting a range of mean shifts. An example is used to illustrate the working of existing and proposed multivariate CUSUM control charts.     

Nonparametric Progressive Mean Control Chart for Monitoring Process Target

Nonparametric control charts are widely used when the parametric distribution of the quality characteristic of interest is questionable. In this study, we proposed a nonparametric progressive mean control chart, namely the nonparametric progressive mean chart, for efficient detection of disturbances in process location or target. The proposed chart is compared with the recently proposed nonparametric exponentially weighted moving average and nonparametric cumulative sum charts using different run length characteristics such as the average run length, standard deviation of the run length, and the percentile points of the run length distribution. The comparisons revealed that the proposed chart outperformed recent nonparametric exponentially weighted moving average and nonparametric cumulative sum charts, in terms of detecting the shifts in process target. A real life example concerning the fill heights of soft drink beverage bottles is also provided to illustrate the application of the proposed nonparametric control chart. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved CUSUM monitoring of Markov counting process with frequent zeros

There has been a growing interest in monitoring processes featuring serial dependence and zero inflation. The phenomenon of excessive zeros often occurs in count time series because of the advancement of quality in manufacturing process. In this study, we propose three control charts, such as the cumulative sum chart with delay rule (CUSUM‐DR), conforming run length (CRL)‐CUSUM chart, and combined Shewhart CRL‐CUSUM chart, to enhance the performance of monitoring Markov counting processes with excessive zeros. Numerical experiments are conducted based on integer‐valued autoregressive time series models, for example, zero‐inflated Poisson INAR and INARCH, to evaluate the performance of the proposed charts designed for the detection of mean increase. A real example is also illustrated to demonstrate the usability of our proposed charts.     

A New Cumulative Sum Quality Control Scheme for Monitoring the Process Mean

A control chart is a powerful statistical process monitoring tool that is frequently used in many industrial and service organizations to monitor in‐control and out‐of‐control performances of the manufacturing processes. Cumulative sum (CUSUM) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts have been recognized as potentially powerful tool in quality and management control. These control charts are sensitive to both small and moderate changes in the process. In this paper, we propose a new CUSUM (NCUSUM) quality control scheme for efficiently monitoring the process mean. It is shown that the classical CUSUM control chart is a special case of the proposed controlling scheme. The NCUSUM control chart is compared with some of the recently proposed control charts by using characteristics of the distribution of run length, i.e. average run length, median run length and standard deviation of run length. It is worth mentioning that the NCUSUM control chart detects the random shifts in the process mean substantially quicker than the classical CUSUM, fast initial response‐based CUSUM, adaptive CUSUM with EWMA‐based shift, adaptive EWMA and Shewhart–CUSUM control charts. An illustrative example is given to exemplify the implementation of the proposed quality control scheme. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving the Performance of Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Control Charts

A control chart is a graphical tool used for monitoring a production process and quality improvement. One such charting procedure is the Shewhart‐type control chart, which is sensitive mainly to the large shifts. For small shifts, the cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts were proposed. To further enhance the ability of the EWMA control chart to quickly detect wide range process changes, we have developed an EWMA control chart using the median ranked set sampling (RSS), median double RSS and the double median RSS. The findings show that the proposed median‐ranked sampling procedures substantially increase the sensitivities of EWMA control charts. The newly developed control charts dominate most of their existing counterparts, in terms of the run‐length properties, the Average Extra Quadratic Loss and the Performance Comparison Index. These include the classical EWMA, fast initial response EWMA, double and triple EWMA, runs‐rules EWMA, the max EWMA with mean‐squared deviation, the mixed EWMA‐CUSUM, the hybrid EWMA and the combined Shewhart–EWMA based on ranks. An application of the proposed schemes on real data sets is also given to illustrate the implementation and procedural details of the proposed methodology. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Combined Application of Shewhart and Cumulative Sum R Chart for Monitoring Process Dispersion

This study analyzes the performance of combined applications of the Shewhart and cumulative sum (CUSUM) range R chart and proposes modifications based on well‐structured sampling techniques, the extreme variations of ranked set sampling, for efficient monitoring of changes in the process dispersion. In this combined scheme, the Shewhart feature enables quick detection of large shifts from the target standard deviation while the CUSUM feature takes care of small to moderate shifts from the target value. We evaluate the numerical performance of the proposed scheme in terms of the average run length, standard deviation of run length, the average ratio average run length, and average extra quadratic loss. The results show that the combined scheme can detect changes in the process that were small or large enough to escape detection by the lone Shewhart R chart or CUSUM R chart, respectively. We present a comparison of the proposed schemes with several dispersion charts for monitoring changes in process variability. The practical application of the proposed scheme is demonstrated using real industrial data. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improved Exponentially Weighted Moving Average Control Charts for Monitoring Process Mean and Dispersion

Exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts are mostly used to monitor the manufacturing processes. In this paper, we propose some improved EWMA control charts for detecting the random shifts in the process mean and process dispersion. These EWMA control charts are based on the best linear unbiased estimators obtained under ordered ranked set sampling (ORSS) and ordered imperfect ranked set sampling (OIRSS), named EWMA‐ORSS and EWMA‐OIRSS charts, respectively. Monte Carlo simulations are used to estimate the average run length, median run length and standard deviation of run length of the proposed EWMA control charts. It is observed that the EWMA‐ORSS mean control chart is able to detect the random shifts in the process mean substantially quicker than the Shewhart‐cumulative sum and the Shewhart‐EWMA control charts based on the RSS scheme. Both EWMA‐ORSS and EWMA‐OIRSS location charts perform better than the classical EWMA, hybrid EWMA, Shewhart‐EWMA and fast initial response‐EWMA charts. The EWMA‐ORSS dispersion control chart performs better than the simple random sampling based CS‐EWMA and other EWMA control charts in efficient detection of the random shifts that occur in the process variability. An application to real data is also given to explain the implementation of the proposed EWMA control charts. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

New GWMA‐CUSUM control chart for monitoring the process dispersion

The cumulative sum (CUSUM) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts have been widely accepted because of their fantastic speed in identifying small‐to‐moderate unusual variations in the process parameter(s). Recently, a new CUSUM chart has been proposed that uses the EWMA statistic, called the CS‐EWMA chart, for monitoring the process variability. On similar lines, in order to further improve the detection ability of the CS‐EWMA chart, we propose a CUSUM chart using the generally weighted moving average (GWMA) statistic, named the GWMA‐CUSUM chart, for monitoring the process dispersion. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compute the run length profiles of the GWMA‐CUSUM chart. On the basis of the run length comparisons, it turns out that the GWMA‐CUSUM chart outperforms the CUSUM and CS‐EWMA charts when identifying small variations in the process variability. A simulated dataset is also used to explain the working and implementation of the CS‐EWMA and GWMA‐CUSUM charts.     

An exponentially weighted moving average chart based on likelihood‐ratio test for monitoring Weibull mean and variance with subgroups

Monitoring changes in the Weibull mean and variance simultaneously is of interest in quality control. The mean and variance of a Weibull process are determined by its shape and scale parameters. Most studies are focused on monitoring the Weibull scale parameter with fixed shape parameter or the Weibull shape parameter with fixed scale parameter. In this paper, we propose an exponentially weighted moving average chart based on the likelihood‐ratio test and an inverse error function called ELR chart to monitor changes in the Weibull mean and variance simultaneously. The simulation approach is used to derive the average run length. We compare our proposed chart with other existing control charts for 3 cases, including scale parameter changes with fixed shape parameter, shape parameter changes with fixed scale parameter, and both parameters changes. The results show that the ELR chart outperforms the other control charts in terms of average run length in most cases. Two numerical examples are used to illustrate the applications of the proposed control chart.     

A mixed HWMA-CUSUM mean chart with an application to manufacturing process

Memory-type control charts play a significant role to identify slight changes in the parameters of the production process. In this article, we have proposed a new cumulative sum chart that utilizes the statistic of the homogeneously weighted moving average chart. The performance of the proposed chart is studied using Monte Carlo simulations. The proposed chart is compared with some existing charts under different run length profiles. The run length profile comparisons reveal that the proposed chart performs superior as compared to the existing control charts. A real-life application using a manufacturing process dataset is also part of this study.     

New Synthetic CUSUM and Synthetic EWMA Control Charts for Monitoring the Process Mean using Auxiliary Information

The cumulative sum (CUSUM) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control charts are potentially powerful process monitoring tool because of their excellent speed in detecting small to moderate shifts in the process parameters. These control charts can be further improved by integrating them with the conforming run length control chart, resulting in the synthetic CUSUM (SynCUSUM) and synthetic EWMA (SynEWMA) charts. In this paper, we enhance the detection abilities of the SynCUSUM and SynEWMA charts using the auxiliary information. With suitable assumptions, the proposed control charts encompass the existing SynCUSUM, SynEWMA, CUSUM, and EWMA charts. Extensive Monte Carlo simulations are used to study the run length profiles of the proposed control charts. It turns out that the proposed near‐optimal control charts with the auxiliary information perform uniformly and substantially better than the existing near‐optimal SynCUSUM, SynEWMA, CUSUM, and EWMA charts. The proposed and existing control charts are also illustrated with the help of an example. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A double exponentially weighted moving average chart based on likelihood ratio for monitoring an inflated Pareto process

In this paper, we present a new chart called a likelihood ratio based double exponentially weighted moving average (LR_DEWMA) chart to monitor the shape parameter of the inflated Pareto process. Three other control charts such as the Shewhart type, the classical cumulative sum (CUSUM), and the likelihood ratio based EWMA (LR_EWMA) charts are also investigated. The performance of the control charts is evaluated by the average run length (ARL) and standard deviation of run lengths (SDRL) computed through the Monte Carlo simulation approach. Moreover, the median run length (MRL) and some other run length (RL) percentiles are also considered in some cases. Different charts have shown the best performance in different cases. In detecting smaller shifts, while the LR_DEWMA chart outperformed the other charts in terms of ARL and MRL, the CUSUM chart has shown the best performance in terms of SDRL and IQR of RLs. The application of the proposed control charts is illustrated using a chromatography analyses data from the food industry.     

An efficient adaptive EWMA control chart for monitoring the process mean

In recent years, the memory‐type control charts—exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) and cumulative sum (CUSUM)—along with the adaptive and dual control‐charting structures have received considerable attention because of their excellent ability in providing an overall good detection over a range of mean‐shift sizes. These adaptive memory‐type control charts include the adaptive exponentially weighted moving average (AEWMA), dual CUSUM, and adaptive CUSUM charts. In this paper, we propose a new AEWMA chart for efficiently monitoring the process mean. The idea is to first design an unbiased estimator of the mean shift using the EWMA statistic and then adaptively update the smoothing constant of the EWMA chart. The run length profiles of the proposed AEWMA chart are computed using extensive Monte Carlo simulations. Based on a comprehensive comparative study, it turns out that the proposed AEWMA chart performs better than the existing AEWMA, adaptive CUSUM, dual CUSUM, and Shewhart‐CUSUM charts, in terms of offering more balanced protection against mean shifts of different sizes. An example is also used to explain the working of the existing and proposed control charts.