Analysis of Process Capability Index for Multiple Measurements
This study is concerned about the process capability index in single process. Previous process capability indices have been developed for the consistency with the nonconforming rate due to the process target value and skewness. These indices calculate the process capability by measuring one spot in an item. But the only one datum in an item reduces the representativeness of the item. In addition to the lack of representativeness, there are many cases that the uniformity of the item such as flatness of panel is absolutely important. In these cases, we have to measure several spots in an item. Also the nonconforming judgment to an item is mainly due to the range not due to the standard variation or the shift from the specifications. To imply the uniformity concept to the process capability index, we should consider only the variation in an item. It is the within subgroup variation. When the universe is composed of several subgroups, the sample standard deviation is the sum of the within subgroup variation and the between subgroup variation. So the range R which represents only the within subgroup variation is the much better measure than that of the sample standard deviation. In general, a subgroup contains a couple of individual items. But in our cases, a subgroup is an item and R is the difference between the maximum and the minimum among the measured data in an item. Even though our object is a single process index, causing by the subgroups, its analytic structure looks like a system process capability index. In this paper we propose a new process capability index considering the representativeness and uniformity.