The Consumer’s Risk and Costs in Zero-Acceptance Number Sampling

The primary purpose of sampling inspection is the protection of consumer’s interests. Although under simple cost models, sampling inspection never serves the producer’s interest, some form of sampling inspection can be beneficial to the consumer under the same assumptions. We consider the case of isolated lot inspection and examine the consumer risk, economic sample design, and errors in the inspection process. Acceptance sampling is shown to be cost-effective to the consumer whenever the lot quality is less than perfect, and even for perfect lot quality in the presence of inspection errors.