A particle swarm algorithm for inspection optimization in serial multi-stage processes

Implementing efficient inspection policies is much important for the organizations to reduce quality related costs. In this paper, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is proposed to determine the optimal inspection policy in serial multi-stage processes. The policy consists of three decision parameters to be optimized; i.e. the stages in which inspection occurs, tolerance of inspection, and size of sample to inspect. Total inspection cost is adopted as the performance measure of the algorithm. A numerical example is investigated in two phases, i.e. fixed sample size and sample size as a decision parameter, to ensure the practicality and validity of the proposed PSO algorithm. It is shown that PSO gives better results in comparison with two other algorithms proposed by earlier works. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.