Robust CUSUM Control Charting for Process Dispersion

Process monitoring through control charts is a quite popular practice in statistical process control. From a statistical point of view, a superior control chart is one that has an efficient design structure, but having resistance against unusual situations is of more practical importance. To have a compromise between the statistical and practical purposes, a natural desire is to have a control chart that can serve both purposes simultaneously in a good capacity. This study is planned for the same objective focusing on monitoring the dispersion parameter by using a Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) control chart scheme. We investigate the properties of the design structure of different control charts based on some already existing estimators as well as some new robust dispersion estimators. By evaluating the performance of these estimators-based CUSUM control charts in terms of average run length, we identify those charts that are more capable to make a good compromise between the aforementioned purposes in terms of statistical and practical needs. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.