Industrial Quality Control

Course Description

Industrial Quality Control is the application of statistical technique to the control of industrial processes. The statewide description names the content directly: control charts, acceptance sampling, design of experiments, analysis of variance and regression.

It is the course where the statistics an industrial engineer has been taking becomes the daily work of the job. ⚠ It is also the most immediately employable course in the degree for manufacturing — the vocabulary of control charts, capability indices and sampling plans is what a quality department actually speaks.

Carried by five Florida public institutions across two numbers at 3 credits: ESI4221 at Florida Polytechnic, UCF and USF, and ESI4221C at UF and UNF. FIU carries the same subject at ESI3221.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Construct and interpret control charts for variables and attributes, and distinguish common-cause from special-cause variation.
• Assess process capability and interpret capability indices against specification.
• Design and evaluate acceptance sampling plans, and state their risks to producer and consumer.
• Apply analysis of variance to identify sources of variation.
• Design and analyse simple experiments, including factorial designs.
• Apply regression to model and predict process behaviour.

Optional Outcomes

• Reliability analysis and life testing.
• Measurement system analysis (gauge repeatability and reproducibility).
• Six Sigma method and the DMAIC structure, where the institution frames the course that way.
• Laboratory exercises with real measurement data — the C form at UF and UNF includes these.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Variation, and the statistical basis of process control.
• Shewhart control charts for variables (X-bar, R, S) and for attributes (p, np, c, u).
• Process capability analysis.
• Acceptance sampling: single, double and sequential plans; operating characteristic curves.
• Analysis of variance.
• Design of experiments; factorial and fractional factorial designs.
• Regression and correlation applied to process data.

Optional Topics

• Reliability and life-cycle testing.
• Measurement system analysis.
• Total quality management, Six Sigma and lean method.
• ISO 9001 and industry-specific quality standards.

Resources & Tools

• Montgomery, Introduction to Statistical Quality Control, is the near-universal text.
• Minitab, JMP, R or Python for the analysis; Excel for basic charting. Check which your section uses before buying anything.
• ⚠ ASQ (the American Society for Quality) publishes the bodies of knowledge for the Certified Quality Engineer and the Six Sigma belts. This course covers a substantial part of the CQE body of knowledge, and those certifications carry real weight with manufacturing employers.

Career Pathways

Named on the Industrial Engineer career path in this repository. It leads directly to quality engineer, process engineer, reliability engineer and manufacturing engineering roles, and is the technical basis of the continuous-improvement function that now exists in Florida hospitals, distribution centres and service operations as well as in factories.

Special Information

⚠⚠ This prefix splits the same subject across two levels

ESI numbers several subjects at both 3000 and 4000 level, and which one you see depends entirely on where you study:

⚠⚠ The level difference is not a difference in content, but it is a real transfer problem. A 2000-level course cannot supply upper-division hours toward a Florida baccalaureate; a 3000-level one can, so both forms here are safe on that count. What is not safe is assuming the numbers match: an evaluator matching on the identifier will see a mismatch where there is none. Send the syllabus, not the number.

The C form at UF and UNF

ESI4221C carries an integrated laboratory: UF’s catalogue describes laboratory exercises illustrating the techniques. The content is the same subject; the laboratory makes the measurement and charting hands-on. ⚠ Where a programme requires the laboratory component, the bare number will not substitute — check which your own catalogue lists.

Where this sits in an accredited programme

ABET-accredited industrial engineering programmes are required to cover the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy, drawing on the mathematical, physical and social sciences. This course is part of how a programme meets that requirement, which is why its content is fairly consistent even where the number is not.

⚠ For Professional Engineer licensure in Florida, what matters is that the degree is accredited under ABET’s Engineering commission: s. 471.013(1)(a), Florida Statutes, requires four years of experience for an engineering curriculum and six for an engineering technology curriculum.