A variables repetitive group sampling plan under failure-censored reliability tests for Weibull distribution

Abstract

We propose a variables repetitive group sampling plan under type-II or failure-censored life testing when the lifetime of a part follows a Weibull distribution with a known shape parameter. The acceptance criteria do not involve unknown scale parameter differently from the existing plans. To determine the design parameters of the proposed plan, the usual approach of using two points on the operating characteristic curve is adopted and an optimization problem is formulated so as to minimize the average number of failures observed. Tables for design parameters are constructed when the quality of parts is represented by the unreliability or the ratio of the mean lifetime to the specified life. It is found that the proposed sampling plan can reduce the sample size significantly than do the single sampling plan.