Unlike AQL, 100% inspection involves examining every single item produced in a batch. This method is aimed at ensuring that no defective products make it to the customer. While it seems comprehensive, it can be resource-intensive and time-consuming.

Discover what Acceptable Quality Limit (AQL) is, how AQL is applied in product inspections and why it's crucial for businesses. Learn best practices for implementing an effective AQL-based quality control process.

In today’s global economy, maintaining product quality is crucial for businesses striving to meet consumer expectations. Whether you're a manufacturer, retailer, or involved in quality assurance, one standard that plays a pivotal role in ensuring product consistency and quality is ISO 2859. This international standard focuses on sampling procedures for inspection by attributes and helps companies make informed decisions about product acceptance.

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.”