Robustness of DEWMA versus EWMA Control Charts to Non-Normal Processes

Abstract

Exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) and double EWMA (DEWMA) control charts were designed under the normality assumption. This study considers various skewed (Gamma) and symmetric non-normal (t) distributions to examine the effect of non-normality on the average run length (ARL) performance of EWMA and DEWMA. ARL performances were investigated and compared using Monte Carlo simulations. Results show that DEWMA charts can be designed to be robust to non-normality, that the ARL performances of EWMA and DEWMA charts were more robust to t distributions and DEWMA was more robust to non-normality for larger values of the smoothing parameter.