How to choose an AQL limit for my products?

There are basically two tables. The first one tells you which ‘code letter’ to use. Then, the code letter will give you the sample size and the maximum number of defects that can be accepted.

Professionals in the quality control field have been using AQL as the basis for acceptance sampling for decades. Sometimes it’s desirable to inspect an entire order of goods. But in most cases, you’ll benefit more by having inspection staff pull a random sample of units from the total order to check using AQL.

The AQL table is widely used to assess quality of the batch without checking the full quantity of products. It is the main tool of the inspectors to use during product inspection, as well as the main metric for importers to decide whether to accept a certain batch of products.

The acceptable quality level (AQL) is a measure applied to products and defined in ISO 2859-1 as the “quality level that is the worst tolerable.”