
222 A First Course in Quality Engineering
4.3.1 X- and R-Charts
The most popular combination used to control a measurement are X- and
R-charts: the former to control the process mean and the latter to control the
process variability� Both are made from the same samples and are gener-
ally used together� Samples, usually of size four or ve, are taken from the
process at regular intervals, and the sample average X and the sample range
R are computed� These values are then plotted on graphs where the limits
calculated from the following formulas have been drawn:
Control limits for R-chart Control limits for X-chart