From: Al Azur
Date: 8/21/2004
Time: 10:32:06 PM
What you apparently do not comprehend is that the concept of AQL is heavily biased in favor of the producer/supplier. So even when lots are accepted, the point estimates of proportion nonconforming from the sampling of a given lot could be "alarmingly" higher than what you naively thought the AQL guaranteed you.
AQL has been a much abused concept over the years and much has been written on this subject. The term has even been recently redefined internationally from "acceptable quality level" to "acceptance quality limit" to deal with popular misconceptions.