A Shewhart X control chart is developed to monitor the process mean for large production runs. It has not been considered appropriate to monitor the process mean using the Shewhart X control chart for small production runs. In this paper we propose the design of X control chart to monitor the process mean for small production runs. For various combinations of the number of samples and the size of each sample, control coefficients of X control chart are computed by numerical methods. Using these results, the X control chart for small production runs is developed to monitor the process mean correctly. Finally, the design procedure of the X control chart for small production runs and the results of misusing the Shewhart X control chart are illustrated by an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
