ABSTRACT
Numerous studies have confirmed the principle that a reputation for best product quality is the surest route to company growth in market share and profitability. Compelling external reasons are required to persuade a customer to settle for less than the best-quality product available at the price. Therefore automated process gauging, like manual inspection, cannot be used as a brute-force method of improving quality; it must be applied sparingly and selectively as needed to guarantee the best quality at the lowest possible cost. Gauging is intended to improve product quality, but it also increases the product cost. Automated process gauging will, therefore, find its best applications in controlling state-of-the-art processes, marginally capable processes, and potentially capable processes with high drift rates. All automated in-process and postprocess gauging for process control should generate adjustment signals based on sample statistics. An absolutely essential but occasionally neglected aspect of process control is confirmation that the gauges in use are appropriate for the task.
