On designing an efficient control chart to monitor fraction nonconforming

Process control measures are mostly applied in production and manufacturing industries. The most important tool used in these disciplines is control chart. In manufacturing and production processes, when the quality characteristic of interest cannot be directly measured, it becomes essential to apply attribute control charts. To monitor fraction nonconforming of the output, quality practitioners mostly prefer p-chart. In this article, a new progressive mean (PM) control chart is being proposed for monitoring drift in proportion of nonconforming products. The design evaluations of the proposed chart are made and compared through different properties of run length distribution, such as average run length (ARL), standard deviation of run length (SDRL), and some percentile points. The performance of the proposed chart is assessed under zero-state and steady-state scenarios. The proposed PM chart is compared with p-chart, moving average (MA) chart, optimal CUSUM chart, modified exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) chart, and runs rules p-charts for monitoring fraction nonconforming. The proposed chart spots efficiently sustained disturbances in the process as compared with their existing counterparts. Two illustrative examples are also provided; one from real-life application of nonconforming bearing and seal assemblies data and the other from simulated data for the implementation of PM chart.     

A double homogeneously weighted moving average control chart for monitoring of the process mean

In the service and manufacturing industry, memory-type control charts are extensively applied for monitoring the production process. These types of charts have the ability to efficiently detect disturbances, especially of smaller amount, in the process mean and/or dispersion. Recently, a new homogeneously weighted moving average (HWMA) chart has been proposed for efficient monitoring of smaller shifts. In this study, we have proposed a new double HWMA (DHWMA) chart to monitor the changes in the process mean. The run length profile of the proposed DHWMA chart is evaluated and compared with some existing control charts. The outcomes reveal that the DHWMA chart shows better performance over its competitor charts. The effect of non-normality (in terms of robustness) and the estimation of the unknown parameters on the performance of the DHWMA chart are also investigated as a part of this study. Finally, a real-life industrial application is offered to demonstrate the proposal for practical considerations.     

On Bayesian EWMA control charts under different loss functions

The motivation for this study is to analyze Bayesian exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) control chart under 3 loss functions namely, SELF, LLF, and PLF. Informative priors (normal and mixture of normal) and non‐informative priors (Uniform and Jefferys) are considered for the analysis. The performance of Bayesian EWMA control chart using posterior and posterior predictive distribution scheme has been evaluated using average run length (ARL) and standard deviation run length (SDRL) as performance measures. Monte Carlo simulations are used to compute the performance measures for different values of smoothing constant. An illustrative example is also presented for practical considerations of Bayesian EWMA control chart.     

Investigating the Impact of Ranked Set Sampling in Nonparametric CUSUM Control Charts

Nonparametric control charts can be useful as an alternative in practice to the data expert when there is a lack of knowledge about the underlying distribution. In this study, a nonparametric cumulative sum (CUSUM) sign control chart for monitoring and detecting possible deviation from the process mean using ranked set sampling is proposed. Ranked set sampling is an effective method when the observations are inexpensive, and measurements are perhaps destructive. The average run length is used as performance measure for the proposed nonparametric CUSUM sign chart. Simulation study shows that the proposed version of the CUSUM sign chart using ranked set sampling generally outperforms than that version of the nonparametric CUSUM sign chart and the parametric CUSUM control chart using simple random sampling scheme. An illustrative example is also provided for practical consideration. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quenching-circumvented ergodicity in relaxor Na1/2Bi1/2TiO3-BaTiO3-K0.5Na0.5NbO3

Quenching alkaline bismuth titanates from sintering temperatures results in increased lattice distortion and consequently higher depolarization temperature. This work investigates the influence of quenching on the ergodicity of relaxor Na_1/2Bi_1/2TiO₃-BaTiO₃-K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃. A distinct departure from ergodicity is evidenced from the increase in remanent polarization and the absence of frequency dispersion in the permittivity response of poled samples. Further, the samples exhibit enhanced negative strain upon application of electric field, indicating proclivity towards correlated polar nanoregions, corroborated by the enhanced tetragonal distortion. As a result, ergodic relaxor Na_1/2Bi_1/2TiO₃-6BaTiO₃-3K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃ exhibits a depolarization temperature of 85°C with a 60% increase in remanent polarization and approximately a threefold increase in remanent strain upon quenching. Quenching-induced changes in the local environment of Na⁺ and Bi³⁺ cations hinder the development of ergodicity promoted by the A-site disorder. These results provide new insight into tailoring ergodicity of relaxor ferroelectrics.     

Dynamic Stability Improvement of Decentralized Wind Farms by Effective Distribution Static Compensator

Dynamic instability of decentralized wind energy farms is a major issue to deliver continuous green energy to electricity consumers. This instability is caused by variations of voltage and frequency parameters due to intermittencies in wind power. Previously, droop control and inverter-based schemes have been proposed to regulate the voltage by balancing reactive power, while inertial control, digital mapping technique of proportional-integral-differential (PID) controller and efficiency control strategy have been developed to regulate the frequency. In this paper, voltage stability is improved by a new joint strategy of distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) six-pulse controller based reactive power management among decentralized wind turbines and controlled charging of capacitor bank. The frequency stability is ensured by a joint coordinated utilization of capacitor bank and distributed wind power turbines dispatching through a new DSTATCOM six-pulse controller scheme. In both strategies, power grid is contributed as a backup source with less priority. These new joint strategies for voltage and frequency stabilities will enhance the stable active power delivery to end users. A system test case is developed to verify the proposed joint strategies. The test results of the proposed new schemes are proved to be effective in terms of stability improvement of voltage, frequency and active power generation.     

Functional finishing and coloration of textiles with nanomaterials

Global demand for functional textiles is continually increasing for both conventional as well as advanced technical applications. Nanomaterials have the potential to transform the textile industry by imparting multifunctional properties such as physical, chemical and biological self‐cleaning, ultraviolet (UV) protection, wrinkle resistance and coloration to textiles without compromising the inherent characteristics of the substrate. This review highlights some of the major applications of nanomaterials to textile substrates to obtain different functional properties. Possible side effects of the nanomaterials on textiles are also reviewed, along with potential hazards to humans and the environment.     

Systematic significance of pollen morphology and foliar epidermal anatomy of medicinal plants using SEM and LM techniques

Alternative medicinal source is a hot issue within medicine community now a days due to various side effects of allotropic drugs; most importantly the multidrug resistance phenomena. Medicinal plants provide an attractive and effective alternative to modern synthetic drugs as they contain different types of bioactive compounds, having great potential in treatment of various diseases. The present study deals with identification of micromorphological characteristics of 10 ethnomedicinally important plants of Northern Pakistan, that is, Aster himalaicus C. B. Clarke, Artemisia maritima (Berg.) Wellkomm, Isodon rugosus (Wall. ex Benth.), Myricaria squamosal Desv, Pedicularis groenlandica Retz. Polygonum aviculare L, Salvia himmelbauer E. Peter, Swertia kingie Hook. f., Tanacetum dolichophyllum (Kitam) Kitam, Verbascum epixanthinum Boiss. & Heldr. as potential source for pharmaceutical industry. The characters studied were shape and size of pollen, polar diameter and equatorial diameter, epidermal cell shape and size, stomata width and length, trichome shapes, and type. Most of the species had tricolporate pollen type but hexacolporate pollen was also observed in Isodon rugosus, Polygonum aviculare, Salvia himmelbauer. Different types of exine sculpturing observed were foveolate, scabrate, lophate, regular, steriate, and alveolate. Minimum equatorial diameter was noted in Tanacetum dolichophyllum (12.4 μm) and maximum in Myricaria squamosal (20.9 μm). Shape of epidermis cell ranged from rectangular and irregular, polygonal and pentagonal. Different types of stomata like anisocytic, actinocytic, paracytic, and diacytic were noticed. Variations in microscopic characters observed in the current study have great potential to be used as identification tools by the taxonomists for further studies.     

Design schemes for the X̄ control chart

This paper studies several issues regarding the design of the X? control chart under normality. Different estimators of the standard deviation are considered and the effect of the estimator on the performance of the control chart is investigated. Furthermore, the choice of the factor used to get accurate control limits for moderate sample sizes is addressed. The paper gives an overview on the performance of the charts by studying different characteristics of the run length distribution, both in the in‐control and in the out‐of‐control situation. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On correct expression of variance of double progressive mean statistic for monitoring Poisson observations

Control charts play a vital role in tracing unfavorable changes in the ongoing process parameters to enhance the quality of the output. Attribute charting schemes are commonly utilized for tracing shifts in fraction nonconforming and number of nonconformities per unit in any production process. A double progressive mean charting structure for monitoring Poisson observations (PDPM) is recently proposed by Alevizakos and Koukouvinos¹ for efficient monitoring of the average number of nonconformities in the production unit. Unfortunately, the variance expression used in the charting statistic of the said article needs correction. The focus of this study is to provide correct derivation and expression of the variance of the PDPM statistic.