ASME B89.7.3.1-2001 - Guidelines for Decision Rules: Considering Measurement Uncertainty Determining Conformance to Specifications

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 2001. — 24 p.The intent of these guidelines is to facilitate the development of understanding between suppliers and customers regarding measurement uncertainty in the decision to accept or to reject a product. Metrologists are continuously faced with the task of making decisions in the presence of measurement uncertainty. To formalize this task, procedures known as decision rules have been developed. A decision rule is a prescription for the acceptance or rejection of products based on the measurement result of a characteristic of the product, the permissible variation associated with that characteristic, and the uncertainty of the measurement result. For workpieces, the permissible variation is commonly called the tolerance; for instruments it is often given by the specification limits or maximum permissible
error (MPE). The terminology of ISO 14253-1 has been adopted and the permitted variation of a product’s characteristic is referred to as the specification zone. This document is intended to provide guidance on decision rules and their implementation.